Indian Society of Advertisers favours BARC ratings, hints at withdrawing support to channels opting out

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The Indian Society of Advertisers is said to have asked its members not to support television news channels opting out of an audience measurement service that resumed in March after a gap of almost one and a half years.

The national group of advertisers is also said to be chalking out plans for a ‘no measurement, no advertising’ rule, according to media reports. The ISA’s advisory asks advertisers to make an informed decision on the matter.

The Broadcast Audience Research Council India (BARC) resumed issuing ratings for TV news channels in March this year, 17 months after they were suspended for allegedly rigged viewership numbers. Some leading news channels have since reportedly pulled out of BARC’s rating system, alleging that it continued to have the discrepancies that put them under the scanner in the first place.

There was no confirmation on which channels have withdrawn from BARC’s rating system.

Experts noted that the bigger news channels continued to rake in advertising revenue during the 17-month no-rating period based on their past ratings and the performance of their ancillary digital businesses, while the smaller channels incurred huge losses. Marketers parked their entire ad budget in the top three to five channels.

In about two quarters after the ratings were withdrawn in October 2020, the smaller channels lost almost Rs 2,000 crore of ad revenue, the experts said. The smaller channels that failed to show viewership data to advertisers ended up selling ad space at all-time low rates and some even shut shop, the experts said.

The ministry of information and broadcasting asked BARC on January 12 to resume viewership data for news channels. The service resumed two months later with BARC releasing audience estimates for news and information channels on a four-week rolling average basis.

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