MUMBAI: A fortnight ago, concerns were raised about India’s audience measurement system, Broadcast Audience Research Council’s (BARC), rolling out its operation on time.
BARC’s chairman Punit Goenka had earlier said that due to delay in receiving the establishment data from Indian Readership Survey (IRS) there might be a delay in the roll out of the rating system in October, as scheduled earlier.
As reported earlier by indiantelevision.com, the council had also set a deadline for the IRS to share the data with it. The council had then pointed out that since the matter wasn’t sub judice as the Bombay High Court had allowed media houses and agencies to use the IRS report 2013 for marketing and media planning purposes on the petition filed by HT Media (HTML), IRS cannot deny sharing any data.
However, all such concerns can now be shoved under the carpet as IRS has shared the data required to start the roll out process. “We have got the IRS data,” says an industry source. But, this is just one part. Informs the source, “Installing peoplemeters will still take a month or so. Now that the data has come to us, we need to design actual panel, identify the households, recruit them, get approval from them for installing peoplemeters and only then can the installing of peoplemeters take place. All this will take a minimum of a month or so.”
BARC has already installed test meters to check for any faults in the peoplemeters being manufactured. “We need to test the peoplemeters for several conditions like: power fluctuation, environment condition etc. So far the meters have been working properly,” he adds. When asked about the number of test meters installed, without revealing much he says, “It is in three digits.”
However according to another industry source who could not contain the excitement says that the installation of peoplemeters shouldn’t take more than a couple of weeks. “As soon as we sort out the process, the installations will start across the 22,000 households across the country in the first phase as the council had said earlier,” informs the source, while stating that the entire installation process will take up to six weeks. BARC will produce 25000 peoplemeters.
“It’s that fast,” proudly boasts the source.
