The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has directed the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) to release the rating for news channels immediately. The ministry has also directed the industry body to launch the news channel data for the last three months, for fair and equitable representation of true trends, as per Republic TV report.
BARC has undertaken the recommendations of TRP Committee Report and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI’s) which is dated on 28th April 2020 and is undergoing revision in its processes, protocols, oversight mechanism and initiated changes in governance structure etc. BARC has reconstituted the Board and the Technical Committee to allow for the induction of Independent Members. The governing body has also formed a permanent Oversight Committee and the access protocols for data have been revamped and tightened.
Welcoming the development, Vikas Kanchandhani, Group CEO Republic TV, said, “Republic Netwok is extremely pleased that the ratings are commencing again. The NBF team and it’s members have been representing to all the stakeholders for the same since a while. It’s important to provide transparency to advertisers and agency partners and absence of data has been a huge concern. The ratings will help the genre to bring incremental business from brands that have been under indexing advertising investments.”
In this scenario, MIB stated that BARC has indicated that in view of the changes undertaken by it, they are reaching out to related constituencies to explain the new proposals and are in readiness to actually commence the release as per the new protocols. It may be noted that NBF is constantly persuading BARC and MIB for release of viewership data for News Channels.
