The Broadcast Audience Research Council faces its first serious test as English news channels pull the plug; questions raised about timing of NBA’s sudden tirade against channels using multiple LCNs, a practice that has been going on for months
BY TEAM IMPACT
The Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) faced its first serious test on the evening of Thursday, May 18 as several English news channels pulled out of BARC’s watermarking system following the release of weekly data earlier in the day that showed the newly launched Republic TV at the top of the English news channels ratings chart.
While the broadcasters, under the aegis of the News Broadcasters Association (NBA), alleged that Republic TV is available on multiple logical channel numbers (LCNs), BARC in a statement on Friday maintained that for channels having same watermark on more than one LCN, viewership gets aggregated and reported as a single channel and not multiple channels in the BARC system. A senior industry observer who refused to be identified has also raised the question as to the timing of this tirade against use of multiple LCNs by the NBA, as many broadcasters had been using dual frequencies over a long time, even before Republic TV had been launched. Besides, Republic TV is a free-to-air channel and can have any number of feeds depending on who chooses to air it. It is pay channels that have to answer about use of multiple LCNs, the observer pointed out.
BARC, on its part, maintained that it has a transparent policy on the matter of measuring channels, and this policy has been consistently applied to all channels who subscribe to its measurement. Meanwhile as most of the aggrieved broadcasters refused to talk, NDTV came out with a statement that said, “NDTV has consistently maintained that there is something terribly wrong with the way Television ratings are measured, yet for lack of an alternative, have been part of the current system. Unfortunately, these flaws and malpractices have seen a spike recently. Consequently, today, we along with other major English news channels, have decided to exit the current BARC ratings system till this issue is addressed.”
MK Anand, MD and CEO of Times Network, said the issue is specific to one week’s data, ie., Week 19 of English general news channels and because of the LCN issue. Following Times Now’s exit from BARC measurement, he commented, “We had a feeling that this week’s data is not representative and we believed there would be distortions. When you see the data, it confirms what the NBA was saying. The disturbance was triggered by an aggressive, desperate player and others upped the ante in self-defence. All BARC had to do was delay the data by 48 hours, have a conversation and clarify what mechanism could be adopted to mitigate such situations.
LEAD-UP TO THE OUTBURST
Even as the Arnab Goswami-led Republic TV pipped Times Now, NDTV 24x7, India Today Television and CNN News 18 to ace the ratings chart in Week 19 of BARC data, the NBA Secretary General Annie Joseph sent a strongly-worded letter to BARC CEO Partho Dasgupta, in which news broadcasters expressed their dismay at the actions of the television viewership measurement agency.
“We refer to our letters dated May 15, 2017 and May 17, 2017 about multiple LCNs being used by Republic TV channel licensed under the news and current affairs genre launched on 6.5.2017. We find that despite our two letters, you have gone ahead and released the inflated and corrupt data for Republic TV as of this morning. This has serious implications and has caused irreversible damage to India’s existing English news TV channels,” wrote Joseph. Noting that the data had no “logic” and “rationale”, she pointed out the genre’s statistics had been distorted across markets.
However, the BARC statement mentions that it has been a common distribution strategy among various TV channels, particularly news broadcasters, to place their channels on multiple LCNs and across genres in the past, and they continue to do so even now. “We measure viewership of channels basis their unique Watermark ID, irrespective of the platform the channel is available on or the number of instances within the platform. Viewership gets aggregated and reported as a single channel and not multiple channels. BARC India neither monitors channel placements across the various DTH platforms/cable head-ends in the country, nor does it have the mandate to do so. In the past, we have measured multiple LCN instances of channels as per our policy, and reported them as one channel and the same principle has been applied to our data released yesterday,” the BARC statement said.
Shashi Sinha, CEO, IPG Mediabrands India, who heads the Technical Committee of BARC, said, “I don’t understand what the issue is, all of a sudden... this practice of multiple feeds is not new. I am not commenting on the right or wrong of it, but even as we speak, some channels are still running multiple feeds.” Interestingly, when India Today rebranded its TV channel Headlines Today, it ran multiple feeds and Arnab Goswami had complained to BARC about it. On being told that there is no regulation against multiple LCNs, Goswami himself went ahead and ran multiple feeds for Times Now. Other channels such as CNN News18 and Aaj Tak also ran dual LCNs at various points after that. At all these times, BARC reported the data as a single channel. NBA never objected or raised any concerns.
INDUSTRY NEEDS STABILITY
Commenting on the development, a leading media agency head said, “This seems like a classic case of shooting the messenger, it seems ironic that in times when clients are talking of optimizing ROI and everything around is based on metrics, the channels chose to pull out of an industry body providing the metric. Eventually advertisers and media agencies need a currency for measurement without which it is not feasible to advertise. On the lighter side, actions such as these are giving added publicity and limelight to the new player.”
“Irrespective of how channels are performing, it doesn’t seem logical to pull out of an industry ratings body which has been set up by the industry itself. If the channels believe there is an issue with a process they should try to correct that, pulling out of ratings is an unhealthy sign to my mind and unfair to both subscribers and advertisers,” said Ashish Bhasin, Chairman & CEO, South Asia, Dentsu Aegis Network.
Pawan Jailkhani, Chief Revenue Officer at 9X Media, said, “It’s very impulsive to pull out of BARC. The channels should wait for some time to see how viewership patterns pan out in the next three-four weeks and whether Republic TV can sustain that viewership. I don’t think there’s harm in taking multiple frequencies. There’s no TRAI ruling that you can’t buy multiple frequencies. People have done it in the past. This is more of a marketing tool of what channels do. Also two frequencies don’t mean that other channels are not available. If they are so finicky about BARC numbers then it’s very sad.”
Another leading media planner also echoed similar sentiments as he added, “Advertising investment depends on ratings. Without the ratings, we will be a bit blind to decide how much to invest where. The news channels will be the ones who will lose out if they pull out of BARC.” Advertisers and agencies have also apparently resolved to advertise only on channels that provide numbers.
A senior industry observer, on condition of anonymity, said, “How can a channel with less than half the viewership of Republic TV hope to compete with it despite rampant misuse of money power, underhand tactics and misuse of the NBA too? The Times Network has lost its leadership position. They should be more graceful in this moment of defeat.” The general refrain is that Republic TV ratings may be very high in the first couple of weeks on account of the curiosity around its launch, Goswami’s personal fan following and people’s eagerness to see him in his new avatar; and that the broadcasters should have waited for four to six weeks for the real picture to emerge.
WHO WILL TAKE CORRECTIVE ACTION?
While Joseph’s letter to BARC called for urgent corrective action, BARC India’s statement mentioned that it is not the regulatory body for resolving issues concerning multiplicity of LCNs for a channel.
“As you can see from the data you have put out, there is no logic or rationale for Republic TV to have the kind of shares and reach across all key markets. On a pan-India basis, discrepancies have been noticed across markets which completely distort the statistics for a very important and influential news genre. Given your indifference to the serious situation at hand, we are left with no option but to advise some of our aggrieved members to opt out of the BARC’s watermarking system with immediate effect until there is appropriate redressal of our grievance. We hope good sense prevails and urgent corrective action is taken by BARC,” the NBA communication to BARC said.
“Ideally, these issues should be sorted among broadcasters themselves rather than dragging BARC India into them,” the BARC statement said. MK Anand of Times Network said he has nothing against BARC as “it is an impartial ratings system”. “First of all, this is not against BARC at all, as it is an impartial measuring ratings system owned by all of us. However, if things are being distorted in the environment and the distortion is being captured and reported, then what’s the recourse? BARC says they don’t have the power to control but we are saying somebody needs to do this, because ultimately the distortion is done for the measurement,” he added.
Commenting on the issue of multiple frequencies, Anand said, “Multiple frequencies are an illegal practice according to TRAI and we support this stand. This is done to get numbers up and if BARC can come up with a mechanism to prevent this, nobody will do it. The last time this happened (during Budget with ET Now taking on CNBC-TV18 on the issue of multiple frequencies), we wrote to BARC and BARC wrote back saying that they didn’t have any mechanism to control this and they can’t do anything as they had no jurisdiction. This allows people to play the system with impunity. It is not about one channel but a situation where all the concerned English news players are saying this week’s data is corrupt. In the absence of any move to assuage this fear, we have decided to black out our channels’ watermark as we believe that next week’s data also will be wrong.” Point to note here is that in the current system, the broadcaster controls the switch. If any broadcaster does not want their channel to be measured, all they have to do is stop watermarking, and the BARC system will not be able to read the channel.
In this scenario, Anand has called for clear guidelines. “If multiple LCNs are allowed then everyone should be allowed to do it. This will lead to the clogging of EPG (electronic programme guides) as a channel will be available in different places and this is a joke on the EPG. This will lead to increased distribution cost. TRAI has to clarify on this and the guidelines should be enforced. We support single LCNs because if your product is strong then a single LCN and normal distribution is enough. If your product is not strong, then you need to do all sorts of gimmickry of multiple LCNs,” Anand said.
@ FEEDBACK
srabana@exchange4media.com
