TAM strengthens security, transparency in research
The television audience measurement agency sets up a vigilance desk and a transparency panel
New Delhi: TAM Media Research Pvt. Ltd, the television audience measurement agency, announced on Tuesday that it had set up a vigilance desk to strengthen security of its television panel homes.
The desk will be headed by a former top cop of the Maharashtra police department. The move is aimed at safeguarding the research agency’s operations, said L.V. Krishnan, CEO, TAM, in a statement .
Krishnan also confirmed the creation of an independent six-member panel (a so-called transparency panel) of ombudsmen. The panel, comprising experts from the field of regulation such as M. Damodaran, former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) and others from the advertising, research and broadcasting sectors, was set up in December 2012, but the news was kept under wraps.
The news on the formation of the transparency panel was first reported by mxmindia.com, a media and marketing website, on Tuesday. Krishnan said that in the long run, the external audit team of the research agency will also report to the panel. “Currently, the audit reports are vetted by us. Eventually we want the independent body to review these reports."
In India, TAM is a joint venture between global research agency Nielsen and WPP Plc’s owned Kantar Market Research and has been facing flak, including lawsuits and complaints to regulators, from broadcasters for alleged corruption and manipulation of ratings.
Krishnan said that the independent body was also required for reasons related to the complexity of television viewership data that the company supplies. “It is, perhaps, a first in the world that a research agency has set up such a panel. It is required here more than anywhere else because of the complexity of data and the transition phase that the industry is in because of shifting to digital platforms from analogue cable. No TV audience measurement covers 225 towns like we do," he said.
The ombudsmen will have an arm’s length relationship with TAM. “We did not make any announcements as the panel was being familiarized with the our systems. We have opened our back-end for the ombudsmen as they have no vested interests in the data," said Krishnan.
Other than the former Sebi chairman, the panel includes Chintamani Rao, a broadcasting and advertising industry veteran; Giovanni Fabris, who worked with McDonald’s as its international media director; Ivor Millman, a television audience measurement expert from the UK; market researcher Praveen Tripathi; and Sheila Byfield, the former Insights director at media buyer GroupM.
According to Chintamani Rao, TAM needed a third-party mediator as it has been the media industry’s favourite whipping boy for a while. Being a measurement system, it needs to observe confidentiality.
“It cannot reveal everything to everybody and in India we do not respect that. Now this independent body knows everything about the back-end and can deal with queries from broadcasters if they are not happy with TAM’s response," he said. The panel has also issued guidelines for TAM customers on how to use the data.
It remains to be seen whether the so-called transparency panel will solve all of TAM’s problems at a time when a new audience measurement system under BARC (Broadcast Audience Research Council) is almost ready. BARC, the body founded and managed by broadcasters and being pushed by the government, has just appointed a CEO and its measurement system is likely to be up and running at the end of the first quarter of 2014.
A broadcaster said TAM has woken up too late. Sunil Lulla, CEO, Times Global Broadcasting Co. Ltd, which runs the Times Now and ET Now channels, said that the agency should have paid attention to television channels’ grievances some years ago. “Now we are looking forward to BARC, which will happen very soon. We have great respect for Mr Damodaran but we are at our wit’s end with TAM."
The disgruntlement over TAM’s ratings resulted in a suit in 2012, when broadcaster New Delhi Television Ltd sought more than a billion dollars in damages in a US court from The Nielsen Co. and its affiliates, claiming the global research firm fudged viewership data. The allegations were denied. The court ruled earlier this year that the case should be heard in India rather than in the US.
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