BARC India allies with Den to measure TV viewership

MUMBAI: Television rating agency Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India on Friday said it has partnered with broadcasting and cable TV service provider Den Networks to measure TV viewership using return path data via the latter's digital set top boxes ((STBS).

As part of this partnership, BARC India will fetch data from STBS of Den Networks and Den Networks, will also use this data for subscriber management, packaging opportunities and to drive advertising revenue on its inhouse channels, Broadcast Audience Research Council India said in a statement.

The return path data (RPD) partnerships will enable BARC India to capture viewership from an exponentially larger panel as it will use a portion of DEN Networks subscriber base to augment its TV measurement service.

The large pool of panel households will also help address the issue of panel home tampering, it added.

"Collecting viewership data using RPD is a global practice. However, for Broadcast Audience Research Council India it will be another global-first as we integrate this as part of the currency.

"Our partnership with Den is the first step towards using RPD for TV viewership measurement," BARC India Chief Business Officer Romil Ramgarhia said.

The TV measurement rating agency is also looking at partnering with more cable and DTH operators for RPD and believes that this approach will allow it to expand panel households to over 150,000 in the near future.

Broadcast Audience Research Council India has a panel home size of 30,000 at present.

"Data gathering and analytics is becoming increasingly relevant in a vast and heterogeneous society like India.

"With this partnership, we have taken the first steps towards world class data analytics of subscriber viewing patterns which will help us to serve our customers in a far more effective way and enabling us to offer personalised services," Den Networks Chief Executive Officer S N Sharma said.