NDTV has delivered the big blow in the eight-year-old war that it has been engaged in with TAM Media Research, and recently with TAM’s parent companies, Nielsen and Kantar... Now, TAM is working hard to salvage the damage caused to its reputation while NDTV is seeking the best way to get what it wants
“Unf*****g believable!” was the sentiment of the Indian media and advertising industry most of last week, when the fraternity woke up to the news of NDTV suing Nielsen, Kantar and TAM Media Research. The prior weekend, on July 26, 2012, NDTV had slammed a $ 1.3 billion court case -- $ 580 million for negligence, a minimum of $ 810 million for fraud and other charges including legal fees -- on TAM and its parent companies in the New York State Court.
The first question was not just ‘Why’, but ‘Why New York’. NDTV is not offering any answers at the moment. The company’s Executive Vice Chairperson, K V L Narayan Rao says, in an email reply to IMPACT, “We confirm we have filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court of New York State. Because the matter is sub judice, we have no further comments at this time.”
For some, the reply to ‘Why New York’ is because TAM is owned by US-based Nielsen and Kantar with no Indian owners. Some others say NDTV was looking for a speedy solution. Some believe the reason was the expensive $ 1.3 billion figure of the case. And for some others, filing a case in a NY State court implied that NDTV is very serious in its intentions of challenging the measurement metric, which at present decides the fate of the Rs 25,000-30,000 crore television advertising industry.
A QUICK LOOK AT NDTV’S ALLEGATIONS
Some International Comparisons
While the industry is still reeling under shock with this unexpected development, for TAM, the damage is done. TAM’s credibility is facing a big question mark right now. Its CEO LV Krishnan, who too cannot speak to media for similar reasons as NDTV, is said to be investing much of his time meeting stakeholders to reiterate that TAM is still the same agency that has for nearly 12 years, provided currency based on which advertisers, agencies and broadcasters have taken decisions worth crores of rupees. But if it is Krishnan campaigning for TAM on one side, on the other side it is none other than Dr Prannoy Roy who is making NDTV’s rationale behind the lawsuit widely known to members of the Indian media and advertising industry.
The eight-year-old war
According to NDTV, it first observed in 2004 that the viewership ratings published by TAM lacked credibility and suffered from severe infirmities. Still a leader in its genre at the time, NDTV began a series of mail exchanges and discussions with TAM Media Research pointing out specific data errors. NDTV wrote to TAM on unusual spikes in Sunday viewership, obscure jumps in viewers for no plausible reason, discrepancies in many markets including Mumbai, Gujarat, Punjab, Karnataka and Chennai amongst others and odd viewership trends in lower SECs like D and E who are not expected to be viewers of genres such as English news. The list of inaccuracies that NDTV could spot, accompanied by suggestions of how these anomalies could be addressed, and TAM’s revert to these mails turns out to be quite a lengthy one and this to-and-fro went on for seven long years.
NDTV continued to express “dismay and disappointment” that even though it had been pointing out these errors to TAM, TAM still continued to disseminate viewership data week-on-week and in turn TAM was “dismayed and disappointed” that NDTV was not just quoting incorrect data but was also taking a wrong approach to TAM numbers. But TAM was not just fighting any media owner – on the other side of the table were the industry’s most respected names that included Dr Prannoy Roy and his team comprising industry doyens such as Dorab R Sopariwala, KVL Narayan Rao and Vikram Chandra, who commanded respect not only as shrewd businessmen and credible journalists, but also for their expertise in understanding statistics and data. If Sopariwala said that TAM’s data was undoubtedly “fudged”, which he did in an email dated March 11, 2008, then TAM had more than its usual reasons to be worried.
In comes the whistleblower...
For nearly seven years, NDTV was fighting this ratings war in a systematic manner. Where on the one hand, it constantly kept TAM on its toes on the basis of its own understanding of data, on the other hand, it broached the subject with qualified industry members from outside the Indian industry to bring more expert opinion to the subject.
NDTV maintained for the longest time that TAM data could be, and was being, manipulated and one reason was corruption at the organization that allowed for TAM PeopleMeter homes to become known to those who wanted to tamper with viewership habits. Such an allegation was not new to TAM, but NDTV was willing to take this a notch up and collect evidence that would prove to TAM and its parent companies that data in India was tainted. The company got a break of sorts when it found itself a whistleblower, who hailed from the distribution fraternity and had more than enough to rattle on the “corrupt practices” at TAM. According to NDTV’s preliminary statement, the whistleblower that NDTV terms as ‘Consultant’ in the statement, was found credible by Nielsen’s global security team. The first reason for this was that the Consultant was able to give a list of 34 homes that were said to be TAM panel homes. Nielsen confirmed this list to be accurate. The information with the Consultant on how TAM panel homes were recruited and how they could be infiltrated for a price was supported by cheques, the paper trail of which Nielsen was in the process of verifying. This Consultant has been protected for his/her identity not to be disclosed at any time.
For those who want, the credibility of this Consultant can still be doubted, but for now, the Indian media industry believes the whistleblower. The reason for this is the credibility of NDTV as a media organization. And perhaps this is also the reason why the industry near-blindly believes NDTV’s statement that Nielsen officials have admitted to corruption in Nielsen and TAM in India.
Nielsen confesses... Really!?
The final battle between NDTV and TAM really began in January 2012, when according to NDTV’s statement, the company had exhausted all modes of communication with TAM to resolve the ratings issue and had taken its complaint directly to Nielsen’s Global CEO, David Calhoun. This was followed by a series of meetings between Nielsen and Kantar’s global officials with NDTV. The biggest highlight of NDTV’s preliminary statement is an exchange that took place on April 11, 2012 when The Nielsen Company’s Chief Security Officer Robert Messemer said that “right through his professional career he has been called in to put out many ‘fires’ across the world for Nielsen, but so far he had never seen anything like this ‘absolutely shocking and unf******g believable’ corruption at Nielsen and TAM in India.”
According to the same statement, Messemer, in a conversation with Eric Salama, CEO, Kantar Group, said, “Corruption and manipulation of data was astonishing and TAM officials were deeply involved. Many TAM personnel refused promotions because they were earning huge amounts in bribes and they would lose this income if they were promoted.” Following this, Salama apologized and assured NDTV officials that a board meeting would be called to discuss the pressing concerns raised by NDTV and suitable action would be taken.
Neither Nielsen nor TAM officials can speak on the subject yet, but senior industry sources, who have had legal experiences of this nature, explain that it would not be tough even for NDTV to misplace the context of a comment like this. A senior industry member asks, “Being the global power that NDTV is calling Nielsen to be, why would Nielsen’s management allow the same TAM Media Research team to still be in office if this is what it had said in a meeting in January? Why would it put up with something like this, and harm its own interests, for seven months?”
TAM on, TAM off...
NDTV was determinedly crusading against TAM’s modus operandi in India and it had left no opportunity that allowed it to express to TAM the problems with the measurement company’s systems. But NDTV was fighting with a double-edged sword. While on the one side it did not believe in TAM and asserted that TAM numbers were manipulated, on the other side, it had to work with the research agency to highlight its own performance.
NDTV knew TAM was the industry’s currency and it used TAM data to highlight to the trade and to its investors occasions when NDTV channels delivered TAM numbers. NDTV used TAM data to promote its numero uno status on various occasions, for almost all its channels – NDTV India, NDTV 24x7, NDTV Profit and some of its earlier channels such as NDTV Metro and NDTV Hindu as well. NDTV also used TAM significantly for NDTV Imagine in the channel’s early days, when it had seen a good beginning.
TAM – cornered and sued
Since November 2011, the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) was aware that corruption and tampering of PeopleMeters was being tabled as an issue with TAM Media Research. NBA’s President KVL Narayan Rao brought the subject to the notice of the NBA Board. Rao’s concerns were shared by others and the Board passed a resolution condemning the subversion of TAM data and stated that if any information was received about unethical practices being adopted by broadcasters, severe action would be taken against the concerned member broadcaster.
As many revisit some of the key developments around May 2012, a big question comes on TAM’s move to suggest to NBA that in light of the imminent advent of digitization in four metros, TAM would not report ratings of channels below a threshold of 30 viewers a week and for news channels that cross this threshold, the data will be reported on a monthly basis in terms of reach. Not just the NBA, but most members of the industry read this as TAM owning up to the flaws in its system.
NBA replied that TAM’s suggestion to stop reporting data should apply to all ‘niche channels’. NBA’s definition of niche was “to take the largest news channel in terms of TAM data and treat that as a cut-off. So, any channel of any genre, equal to or lesser than this cut-off, was a niche channel. Similarly, the total share of news as a genre was to be the cut-off to determine a niche genre”.
Such a cut-off would have also included genres such as English movies. Majority of TAM subscribers finally did not agree with the suggestion and TAM continued to report all channels as before. For NDTV, by now, TAM and its parents Nielsen and Kantar had broken every promise and agreement on the matter and NDTV’s last resort was moving court – not just any court, but New York State Court.
So what is next? On the court case, one will know once the case is tried by court. But until then, it would be about TAM working hard to salvage the damage caused to its reputation and NDTV finding the best way to get what it wants, connecting with the industry at the same time on why it had no choice but to go after the currency without which recessionary times would become tougher.
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