News broadcasters to gain weekly access to raw level data

It's official. News broadcasters as well as broadcasters in the niche genre will now be having access to weekly Raw Level Data (RLD). The Ministry of Information and Broadcast confirmed it last week.

Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India is set to eliminate the four-week rolling average, initially implemented upon the resumption of news genre ratings after a 17-month hiatus prompted by the alleged TRP scam.

Ratings for the news genre recommenced on March 17 of the previous year, as per the directive of I&B secretary Apurva Chandra.

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting last week approved the unrolling of the viewership data for the news and niche genres.

MIB has been involved in a number of initiatives to ensure transparency in audience measurement.

“BARC functions as an industry body involving advertisers, broadcasters, and agencies, with the government providing guidelines on data measurement methods. We've urged BARC to expand the number of households in their measurement, considering India's diverse regions. They have agreed to do that over time,” Chandra told Storyboard18 last week.

He also said that while the entertainment segment receives minimal complaints, the news segment, particularly English news, faces challenges due to a smaller sample size.

“To address concerns, we suggested one-month rolling data for news channels. Now, for the sake of transparency, we've advised BARC to provide raw-level data so that news channels can themselves see and arrive at their own conclusion based on it,” he added.