Delhi High Court Adjourns Kantar Case Again

The hearing of Kantar Market Research Services' appeal against Indian government guidelines effectively banning its TAM joint venture with Nielsen has been postponed yet again, this time to February 9th 2016.

According to www.televisionpost.com , case respondent the India Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) filed a counter affidavit only on Thursday, causing Kantar to request the further adjournment; and the request was accepted when no opposition was forthcoming from the two key respondents, the Union of India and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) guidelines, which surfaced suddenly in January 2014, state that no investor can hold more than 10% equity holdings in both a TV ratings agency and a broadcaster or advertising company in the country; and that such ratings agencies must use a minimum sample size of 20,000. Despite the general wording of the document, its significance was limited fairly clearly to TAM, which is a 50:50 joint venture between the two global research groups, and which at the time used a sample of 9,600 panel homes to provide the country with its only TV audience measurement currency.

Kantar's appeal points out that the implementation of the guidelines would result in the closure of TAM and force it to sell its stake in the agency, and argues that neither the MIB nor TRAI has jurisdiction to frame rules for TV ratings agencies. DRNO last reported on an adjournment in February, since when the case has been delayed twice more. Arguably, it has in any case now been overtaken by events, in that new Indian TV audience measurement body BARC has launched its own measurement service; and has formed a meter management joint venture company with TAM which will supply the fieldwork for it - even reportedly talking in terms of a merger of the two organisations; and as of last week, TAM and WPP agency IMRB International have jointly launched a cross-media consumption data service in the country, TeleWeb Audience Measurement, which covers both TV and online platforms.

The case continues - or one might say, continues not to start.