IAS exam preparation - Saraswathi River

BARC

 

Context:

  • In the spirit of the TRP Committee Report and  Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI’s) recommendation dated 28.04.2020, M/s Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC)  has undertaken revision in its processes, protocols, oversight mechanism and initiated changes in governance structure etc. 
  • The reconstitution of the Board and the Technical Committee to allow for the induction of Independent Members have also been initiated by BARC.  A permanent Oversight Committee has also been formed. The access protocols for data have been revamped and tightened.
  • BARC has indicated that in view of the changes undertaken by it, they are reaching out to related constituencies to explain the new proposals and are in readiness to actually commence the release as per the new protocols

 

What is TRP?

  • The TRP is the metric used by the marketing and advertising agencies to evaluate viewership.
    • Viewer:Anyone who watches television for more than a minute is considered a viewer.
    • It represents how many people, from which socio-economic categories, watched which channels for how much time during a particular period. This period is one minute as per the international standards.

 

Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC)

    • It is a company created in 2010 and jointly owned by advertisers, ad agencies, and broadcasting companies, represented by the Indian Society of Advertisers, the Indian Broadcasting Foundation and the Advertising Agencies Association of India.
    • The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting notified the Policy Guidelines for Television Rating Agencies in India on January 10, 2014, and registered BARC in July 2015 under these guidelines, to carry out television ratings in India.
Methodology of Calculation:
    • Bar-o-meters: BARC has installed Bar-O-meters in over 45,000 empanelled households. These record viewing details as well as audio watermarks of content.
      • Audio watermarks are embedded in video content prior to broadcast. These watermarks are not audible to the human ear, but can easily be detected and decoded using dedicated hardware and software.
Selection of Households: 
  • The households are chosen by an annual Establishment Surveywhich is a large-scale face-to-face survey of a sample of approximately 3 lakh households from the target population.
      • The panel chosen to capture TRPs must be representative of the country’s population, and the methodology must be economically viable for the industry.
Classification of Households: 
  • These households are classified into 12 categories under the New Consumer Classification System (NCCS) adopted by BARC in 2015, based on the education level of the main wage earnerand the ownership of consumer durables from a list of 11 items ranging from a power connection to a car.

Source: THE HINDU.