BARC 'Picks Mediametrie for Indian Audience Task'

Indian audience measurement body BARC met over the weekend to decide between short-listed suppliers for its television ratings contract. With no official announcement as yet, some reports suggest French firm Mediametrie has been chosen, with a contract to be signed this week.

A shortlist of five suppliers were in the running, also said to include Nielsen, Kantar Media and Cross-Tab. The official statement following the meeting on Saturday said that 'There was unanimity in deciding on a leap in technology to be used in television measurement', and 'The board approved the management and the technical and commercial committees to go ahead and finalize with a couple of international companies for this'. However, an unnamed BARC executive said off the record that the French firm was due to scoop the contract, according to www.indiantelevision.com : 'The in-principle approval of the board has been given, however the deal between BARC and Mediametrie is yet to finalized.'

BARC Chairman Punit Goenka said the new system 'should start rolling out by the end of second quarter of calendar year 2014' and that technology pilots should be completed by the end of January. The new system will use a panel initially of 20,000 homes, increasing by 10,000 each year in line with guidelines from the country's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB).

The board must also make deals with banks over funding of the project, and says it has received an encouraging level of interest in this. Goenka adds: 'However, we can finalise the funding part only after the vendors have been [chosen].' Asked about the amount of funds required for BARC, Goenka said that it will be more than the c.Rs 1 billion currently spent on TAM India.

According to www.indiantelevision.com , Mediametrie will use watermarking technology - the insertion of an inaudible code into broadcasts - to monitor TV consumption by the panel.

BARC was established in 2010 as an umbrella organisation which oversees and controls the television audience measurement system across India.

Web site: www.mediametrie.com .