Indian State to Regulate TV Ratings Firms

The Indian government has announced it will regulate television ratings agencies in the country, requiring them to register with the I&B Ministry within 30 days, and raise sample size to a minimum of 20,000 panel homes - potentially a blow to Nielsen/Kantar joint venture TAM.

The government said the move was part of its plan to bring transparency to television ratings, but the most obvious effect of the panel size stipulation is the headache it will cause for TAM, whose current panel despite being one of the world's biggest is a long way off the new target, at 9,600 homes containing around 37,000 individual respondents. Conversely, the ruling will suite very nicely the new ratings system being established by BARC (Broadcast Audience Research Council), the umbrella organisation set up in 2010 - which has already committed to 20,000 homes.

TAM has been under fire since the summer of 2012, when New Delhi Television (NDTV) filed a lawsuit against Nielsen and Kantar, claiming that staff at the joint venture took bribes in exchange for overstating ratings. The suit has made little progress in the courts but has further encouraged and focused criticism of TAM from disgruntled broadcasters and agencies. The online Indian press is replete with quotations from anonymous commentators forecasting difficulties for TAM, but says the JV itself has so far declined to comment.

Web site: www.tamindia.com .