Broadcasters sign up to BARC; leave TAM

Indian television broadcasters have signed up to new audience measuring body, Broadcast Audience Research Council India (BARC) and handed in their termination notices to existing body, TAM India.

Best Media Info reports that a letter last week from AAAI has asked broadcasters and agencies to move to the new system, resulting in many of them departing from TAM India.

The report adds that GroupM, IPG, Dentsu Aegis Network have informed TAM India that they will not be extending their subscription after 31st March 2015.

Star TV India, ZEE Network, Discovery India, Star Sports, India TV and NDTV India are amongst broadcasters who have also sent in their termination letters to TAM India. Multi Screen Media and Viacom18/TV18 are also said to be leaving but this could not be confirmed at the time of filing this article.

Sudhanshu Vats, Group CEO, Viacom18 Media Group, told BestMediaInfo.com in an interview last week, ���BARC is a joint industry body, and we are part of the industry. We basically believe that BARC will have a more accurate and better measurement. And basically, our preference would be to go with the measurement which is more robust, transparent and accurate. We are still evaluating our decision. Come April 2015, we will go with one measurement.�۝