Prasar Bharati moves CCI against TAM for anti-competitive practice

MUMBAI: After a lull, the battle between broadcasters and TAM has resumed with public broadcaster Prasar Bharati moving Competition Commission of India against the audience measurement agency for anti-competitive practices.

The pubcaster had filed the complaint against TAM on Friday alleging that the ratings agency has been using its dominant position in audience measurement by excluding markets where Doordarshan channels have strong presence.

The complaint was filed under section 4 of the Competition Act 2002, which pertains to abuse of dominant position by a market player.

"On Friday (November 16) we received information from Prasar Bharati alleging anti-competitive practice by TAM. We will consider the matter through the week and if prima facie it makes a case, we will ask the Director General (Investigations) to probe the allegations," newswire PTI quotes a senior CCI official as saying.

Prasar Bharati has alleged that TAM has installed peoplemeters in 8,000 homes and only covers towns and cities with 100,000 plus population, which keeps keeps rural as well as smaller towns out of audience measurement.

The pubcaster had decided to move the CCI after its board meeting in September. Prasar Bharati officials feel that the organisation should claim damages from the ratings agency due to defects in its rating system.

Earlier, the news broadcaster NDTV filed in July a law suit against Nielsen and Kantar Media, which jointly own Tam India, for manipulation of viewership data. NDTV has demanded $810 million as compensation for the loss in revenues it has suffered over the years and $580 million in penalty for negligence by Nielsen and Kantar officials.

Ever since NDTV has filed the lawsuit, calls for setting up Broadcast Audience Research Council (Barc) has grown louder with the broadcasters being in the forefront of the demand.

The Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) have held several meetings on how to roll out Barc. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has also asked the industry to speed up the existence of Barc.