What has it been like for the industry in the absence of TAM ratings for several weeks during the onset of digitization? Shobhana Nair finds out what broadcasters and media agencies have to say.
TAM had stopped releasing television ratings data on October 7, after a discussion with an industry core committee comprising the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA), which requested it to hold back data for nine weeks to ensure the smooth onset of digitization in the four metros. So how has it affected industry stakeholders whose business significantly revolves around weekly TAM ratings? We talk to media planners and broadcasters to find out if they wake up to Wednesday Morning Fever.
‘WE’VE ACHIEVED THE PRIMARY AIM OF ENSURING DATA INTEGRITY’
MAN JIT SINGH, President, IBF
The reason why IBF wanted to switch off TAM data for a period of time was to maintain the integrity of the data when some of the boxes would be turned off and we wanted to analyse and ensure data integrity. That was the primary purpose and we feel that we have achieved it as we have been working with AAAI, ISA and TAM. I look at ratings as trend lines and not as single points. So for me, it’s about the broad trends in the last few weeks and what it implies for the future.
Meanwhile, all of us broadcasters continued with our plans. We didn’t hold back because there were no ratings. I think we sort of know how big properties would perform. For example, with Ek Tha Tiger, you know what are the kind of numbers you are going to get and frankly advertisers say the same thing.
On most of the channels, the variations for two months would be relatively small. It would be only 10-15 plus points or 10-15 down points, but it’s not going to be a sudden swing. I don’t think we are worried so much about it and we all look forward to our ratings for the period.
ROHIT GUPTA, President, MSM
It’s important that we get ratings, but life doesn’t change if we don’t. We launched our shows, ran our blockbuster… did what we had to do. So much is being said about it, like figures will be down and people won’t advertise. Somebody senior in the media said that they are advising clients not to do any new activity. It’s crazy. Just because ratings are not there, people haven’t stopped watching TV. They don’t even know what ratings are. Brands also realize that people have not stopped watching TV. TAM should give data for the entire country. People are watching TV but broadcasters are not able to monetize.
MOHAN GOPINATH, Senior VP, Zee Cinema
TAM is a mathematical representation of what we are doing and when the news came that there would be no TAM data, the responsibility only grew to get connected to the audience in the light of numbers not being published at this point of time. Initiatives on digital and social media brought us close to our audience. It has been very exciting. We did a Dussehra festival with innovations on Facebook and other digital media which was wellreceived. Joker was premiered on November 10. Creatively, we’ve gone up a step in terms of thinking of better ideas in the noratings scenario.
NACHIKET PANTVAIDYA, General Manager, Star Plus
To be very honest, ratings were not missed. There’s hope that at the end of the nine weeks, you will get ratings for all the shows. Ratings are not coming in immediately but they will at a later date. If there is a blanket ban and ratings are not coming in at all, then it’s a problem. Creativity shouldn’t be linked with a week-on-week rating system. We prefer to be committed to a longer story-line. It’s difficult to develop story-lines on a weekly basis. In the last two months, we have launched three new shows. Ratings or no ratings, viewers like to celebrate with us.
AJAY BHALWANKAR, Programming Head, Zee TV
There’s a big myth about Wednesday morning and its scary part. You won’t find us running helter-skelter on Wednesdays. Ratings tell you what has been liked and what has not been liked, but not what has to be done. So they are just a reference point. We already have an internal meter which we follow to check whether a programme is creating any magic or not. Internal judgment is very important. I started my career in the 90s and for the first eight years, there were no ratings. So ratings don’t bother me.
MALA MANYAN, COO, Raj Television
Honestly, I felt have got freedom. I might be considered politically incorrect but that’s how I am. I would like to say that I don’t believe in the system. Every Wednesday, we get our ratings and we scan through them. But every time, I start laughing. I don’t find it justified at all for various reasons. This entire year, there were power cuts in Tamil Nadu, often 8-10 hours of power cuts at random hours. As for ratings, viewership should have gone down drastically, but there wasn’t any big change in the numbers. To be honest, I don’t think the ratings are scientific enough to be trusted.
NINA E JAIPURIA, EVP & Business Head, Kids Cluster, Viacom18
Every industry needs a currency and we are missing our currency because we have only one. If the currency is missing, you are not able to measure yourself and anything that is not measurable is not good. Now we are hoping that what we are doing is right and kids are accepting and loving what we offer. For example, we launched Motu Patlu, but we do not have a single rating for that show. Digitization can only make things better for niche channels; the industry gets more transparent and everybody gets a fair share of revenue that we well deserve.
AJIT VARGHESE, MD, Maxus
It’s a concern for us that crores of rupees are going into a medium for which we don’t have accurate ratings. We also don’t know the effect of DTH on the industry. In the four metros where most brand sales happen, not getting enough data is a concern. We don’t know what we are buying. We don’t know what the penetration of digitization is. Even if the data comes later, how robust will it be? Now, 60-70% of viewership will be measured and the rest won’t. That’s a new challenge. Our planning for December was impacted as it is made on the basis of October and November data. Even if we do a mid-course correction, it won’t work. We did dipsticks in some areas, but how many can we do as we decide for 1 million+ towns and 1 lakh+ towns? The fact is that we need a TAM. For me, TAM is the best measured and managed.
SHRIPAD KULKARNI, CEO, Allied Media
Though the data was withheld, we had planned all the festive campaigns. Hence it was peaceful. I think it was timed very well. After the festive season, FMCG & consumer goods advertising takes a break. More tourism and holiday-related brands advertise. The only problem is that we track the activities and then we course-correct it. However, it being the festive season, there’s very little scope for course-correction. Since we are going to get data after a long time, I expect dramatic ratings. The new data will show a realistic picture. As for us, we were referring to social media only for newer programmes and launches, not for on-going properties. We do a lot of our own research. Before the ratings stopped, we started a research and checked what the change was, but of course this doesn’t replace TAM data. It would be very difficult to imagine life without TAM.
NANDINI DIAS, COO, Lodestar UM
It worries you when you invest money and you don’t know whether you are investing right or not. TAM in a way reassures us or directs us where to invest and investing blindly is always worrisome. Broadcasters are not accountable to clients, we are. While we all understand that 80% of the trends may remain the same, the remaining 20% too is a lot of money these days. That’s where all the strategies come - where you put your best foot forward to make your money work harder for you and differentiate. Without data, it’s difficult. We were looking at digital chatter quite a bit to see what’s trending and what’s working. We have never done as many surveys and researches as we did in the past few weeks. We all understand why the ratings have been stopped for a while and we are eagerly waiting for it to start.
‘There were requests we could not comply with’
LV Krishnan, CEO, TAM Media Research, talks to Srabana Lahiri about how TAM has fared during the data holdback period
Q] How has it been for you and your team after October 7? What has been your experience of the period of not putting out data?
For us, life has been as normal as it was earlier, when data release was happening. This is primarily because we did not stop the internal function of procuring, processing, validating and preparing data, keeping it ready for release when scheduled. So the network of teams involved on a weekly basis largely went about doing their business. Integration of data with advertising on the channels also happened continuously.
The only area that was probably slightly different was client interactions. Most of the interaction that happened was strategic-based, trying to understand the long term impact of digitization on consumers rather than the short term weekly data changes that broadcasters earlier were coming back with.
Besides this, we did a continuous baseline… akin to a census study among a large set of sample homes to understand the digital penetration in the four metros. Apart from aligning the panel vis a vis the overall universe, we made changes in the panel simultaneous to the change in the environment. Overall, it’s been a pretty hectic period, but we’ve got a thumbs up as to how the way forward looks like.
Q] Have you been under any kind of pressure from industry stakeholders? For instance, has anyone been calling up to get leads on data or demanding to know their position?
It’s bound to be like that! When a daughter or a son leaves for higher studies and goes abroad after living for, say, 20 years with his or her mother, the mother is going to get extremely anxious to know their status in the outside world. Therefore, she’s going to keep calling up to find out if everything is OK. The same thing happens here too – when you have lived with data for almost 14 years on a week to week basis, and there has never been an interruption to TAM data ever, and suddenly you find a vacuum, you will tend to become anxious and therefore send a message across to a research organization to find out how you have been performing. But given the fact that it was an industry call, most people showed a healthy respect for the decision. While there were calls, they were not demands… more like requests, which of course we could not comply with. Everyone is willing to wait until December 19 to see how their performance has been.
Q] What have been some of the points of discussion in meetings with the industry core committee so far?
The industry core committee has been interacting very smoothly with TAM, the impact of that is going to be seen when the data release happens on December 19. One of the key points of discussion was the level of digitization. Earlier the fear was that digitization would be tardy in nature, and blackouts would mean a large percentage of homes being blanked out of television signals. We addressed that through continuous baseline data and reflection of baseline data in the panel to see how things are changing. The second area we took up was understanding if there was any behaviour change during switchover from analog to digital which was not under the influence of programming or marketing. We looked at cross-references of data from different periods of time during the year to conclude that the onset of digitization has been pretty smooth. The third area of discussion was on how long the data should be held back and when it should be released. There was consensus that it should be released on December 19 as agreed earlier. The fourth point was assessing Chennai as a market where digitization has not progressed. Lastly, we also discussed the document we released on DAS just before we stopped releasing data. There was overall consensus again with the industry bodies agreeing on the guidelines we had formulated to enable a smooth transition through the switch-over.
Q] What changes would one expect to see in the TAM universe after December 19?
For Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata, from Week 44, which is the week when digitization kicked in, there will be a change in universe numbers because many homes would have shifted from analog to digital. In Chennai, we have hardly seen any significant movement on digitization - so the data will continue to flow as it has in the last 10 months as analog and digital data.
Feedback: srabana@exchange4media.com
