Don’t use BARC viewership data for 6 weeks, ISA tells members
While the debate on viewership data darkness during the transition to the new tariff order by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) continues, the Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) has communicated to its members not to use viewership data for media planning and buying purposes during this time.
The advisory said the ISA executive council and coremedia committee have been in touch with the Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC), the agency which brings out weekly television (TV) ratings, the currency on which ad-sales is traded in the country. “Considering the fact that the Trai NTO (new tariff order) is across India, its impact will be significantly different in each region given the varied distribution and broadcast landscape of each region. NTO, if implemented in true spirit, is likely to have shift in channel availability and hence, possibly consumption landscape also,” it read.
As a result, the members of the advertiser body have been advised that viewership data during the transition period, which it estimates at six weeks, should not be used for media planning, evaluation, or buying. It added that the ISA will work closely with BARC to ascertain when the data will become usable again. As of now, data will be released every week however.
Meanwhile, teething problems continue a week into the implementation of the NTOforTV channels as mandatedby the Trai. While most distribution platform operators (DPOs), including cable and direct-to-home (DTH) players, have made the switch to the new regime, uptake continues to be slow at the consumer’s end.
According to Trai’s intimation in the last week of January, 40 per cent of pay TV subscribers had exercised their choice to switch to the new regime. Industry experts and company executives now estimate that figure could be 50-55 per cent if actual conversion rates after the February 1 deadline to switch (for cable/DTH operators and broadcasters) aretakenintoaccount. Thedeadline for the consumer to exercise his or her choice is February 13, after which, those who have not made the shift, will cease to receive signals on their set-top boxes. Consequently, it is difficult to gauge whether average monthly cable bills have gone up, or reduced. Experts say that till things don’t settle down, it is difficult to predict the impact on cable bills at the consumers’ end, and average revenue per user at the distributors’ and broadcasters’ end.
While a CRISIL report predicts that the average monthly cable bill is expected to go up, the key point is that consumers will now pay for what they have want and have chosen. So, in the erstwhile regime, if consumers used to pay an average bill of ~250 a month for 800plus channels, now they may pay the same amount, but for far fewer channels, which they choose. Experts also believe that subscription patterns for certain genres, news, and sports for example, will become increasingly event-driven. So an election quarter may see surge in news channel subscriptions, while a cricket-heavy quarter will see sports channels in demand.
Currently, most DPOs have modified the interface on their platforms in line with the new regime. If a subscriber lands on a channel he/she has not chosen, a message appears on the screen stating the channel has not been subscribed by the viewer, and in order to see the content, they need to subscribe to it. Most platforms have also put brief instructions on how to subscribe to the channel as part of the message.
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