BARC India & DEN Networks tie-up to strengthen TV ratings

BARC India and cable distribution company, DEN Networks have announced a strategic tie-up to boost the TV measuring service.

DEN Networks will be using Return Path Data (RPD) through its digital set top boxes. BARC India will use DEN Networks subscriber base to increase the panel size, which will also held address the issue of panel home tampering.

“Collecting viewership data using RPD is a global practice. However, for BARC India it will be another global-first as we integrate this as part of the currency. Our partnership with DEN is the first step towards using RPD for TV viewership measurement,” said Romil Ramgarhia, CBO, BARC India.

BARC India, which is looking at partnering with more Cable and DTH operators for RPD, believes that this approach will allow expansion of panel households to over 150,000 in the near future.

“Currently most Cable/ DTH operators in India do not have information on how their subscribers consume content. With more interactive services being launched, this will be a very valuable information for the platform owners. This partnership is a win-win for both and will benefit the larger ecosystem,” added Romil.

SN Sharma, CEO, DEN Networks said, “Data gathering and analytics is becoming increasingly relevant in a vast and heterogeneous society like India. With this partnership, we have taken the first steps towards world class data analytics of subscriber viewing patterns which will help us to serve our customers in a far more effective way and enabling us to offer personalized services.”