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Prasar Bharati may
sue TAM for ‘raw deal’ to Doordarshan source:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com |
Close on the heels of the NDTV lawsuit, Prasar Bharati is considering
legal action against Television Audience Measurement
(TAM) for suppression of data related to viewership for Doordarshan and
its allied channels. The issue is likely to be discussed in the Prasar
Bharati board meeting on August 6.
Prasar Bharati CEO Jawahar Sircar said, "I am keen on taking legal action
against TAM. But we are still in discussions with our legal counsel. The
final decision will be taken by the board and we will abide by it."
Doordarshan has 37 channels including DD Bharati and DD National besides
four allied channels like Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha TV. With its 1415
transmitters DD enjoys an enviable 92% coverage of the country through its
terrestrial network. These would constitute a viewership of about 2.5
crore people. The state broadcaster also has DD Direct Plus that has over
1 crore subscribers amounting to at least 3.5 crore viewers.
However, sources say that despite the largest viewership base DD has
always been short-changed by TAM when it came to viewership ratings.
"DD channels never notch high television rating points and our revenues
have over the years suffered tremendously because of that," a source said.
Prasar Bharati's revenues have in fact stagnated at Rs 1,200-1,400 crore
in the last few years. This has also meant that the public broadcaster had
to be sustained by the public exchequer.
The pubcaster has repeatedly raised this issue with the I&B ministry and
the parliamentary standing committee. In fact, appearing before the 2004
Parliamentary standing committee headed by Nikhil Kumar that looked at the
TRPs issue, Prasar Bharati said that neither broadcasters, advertisers or
corporate media planners could get a "true picture" about Indian viewers'
TV watching habits as the rating system did not adequately represent the
actual television viewing pattern of the Indian TV homes.
Prasar Bharati pointed out that "62 million of 112 million TV homes were
outside the ambit of television audience measurement ratings as they were
in rural areas".
The report says, "Prasar Bharati further stated that besides the size and
non-representation of the sample, other factors affecting the reliability
of TAM Media Research data were the release of data on weekly basis, lack
of transparency in the method of selection of households and the
confidentiality of the names of panel homes, which prevented verification.
Further, induced viewership and tampering with data could not be ruled out
as ratings were not subjected to validation or independent audit."
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It is a fact that TRP ratings were absolutely unscientific and have hurt Prasar
Bharati very badly. Many Private channels were able to grease the palms of
TAM and got good rating, fudged though. They made fast bucks. Doordarshan
channels were the losers. The method used by the TAM to assess the
viewership is faulty and without any scientific basis. The people meters
that have been installed aren’t enough in number – there are only 7,200
people meters in 148 cities with one lakh population, with a considerable
part of them in the metros. There are not enough in smaller towns. There
are no people meters in the North East and whole of J&K, Jharkhand,
Bihar.. There is not a single people meter in the 600,000-odd villages in
the country. People meters are not very effective modes of assessing what
people watch on TV.
Now with the law suit of NDTV it became quite evident that TAM ratings
were also manipulated by Private Broadcasters by paying bribes to
the rating agencies officials. FRIENDS OF PRASAR BHARATI demands that the
government should initiate action against the rating agencies involved in
this scam.
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