Fourteen months ago, after bitter competition, the
industry-authorised national Peoplemeter contract finally went to a
joint venture between the JWT-owned Indian Marketing Research Bureau
(IMRB), and ACNielsen.
ORG-Marg, owned by media group Business India, lost the Peoplemeter
business - but reckoned correctly that there would be much official
palaver before the IMRB-Nielsen venture took off, and decided to go into
operation anyway with its own product, Intam.
While large broadcasters like government-owned Doordarshan and Zee TV
fussed over funding the Peoplemeter project, the ORG-Marg product was up
and running, now with Dutch ally VNU.
Spurred by the success of the 'unofficial' research on TV viewing
habits, the IMRB-Nielsen combine finally put its funding together and
came out with their official product, TAM.
Many professionals have grave doubts about the direction that audience
research is taking and are hoping for a recognisable industry
standard.
Mr Arun Kapoor, proprietor of Delhi-based ad agency Foresight, filed a
complaint with the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices
Commission, contending that the survey size in TAM/Intam is inadequate,
and that viewership data was liable to manipulation as both ventures are
owned by users of the data: IMRB by HTA (Indian JWT) and ORG-MARG by
Business India.
"Nowhere else is a rating agency connected with an ad agency," Mr Kapoor
claimed, arguing that agencies do not want to antagonise TV channels
with which they do substantial business.
Earlier this year, white goods major Videocon levelled much the same
accusation in a public and bitter media battle and threatened punitive
legal action.
ATN programming director Yogesh Radhakrishnan echoed Mr Kapoor's
comments and said, "No country in the world has two TV research
companies."
Mr Radhakrishnan was also critical of the way research is conducted by
the two agencies.
"All foreign research is done with channel expanders," he said.
"In Mumbai, 40-50 per cent of viewers have black and white TV sets and
colour TVs which are not cable-ready, showing 8-12 channels. How can a
TV set that receives 8-12 channels be monitored for 60 channels?"
Illustrating the point that TV research in India is in its infancy, Mr
Amit Khanna, executive committee member of the Indian Broadcasting
Foundation and CEO of programme provider Plus Channel, said, "There is
very little qualitative research. Nobody really has a qualitative
research model suited to the Indian environment. The number of eyeballs
does not tell you anything.
In a comparative environment, you have to look for qualitative
research."
Mr Rakesh Sharma, programming and marketing consultant with Tamil
language Vijay TV, said that while TAM and Intam provide broad
demographics of the family audience, they ignore the specifics.
"If you want a detailed analysis of the high end subscriber, 15-24 years
old in 200 satellite homes, the ratings don't show up because of
insufficient data," he said.
Mr Sharma's point of view was that research is not an end in itself.
"I look at research for 25 per cent, and 25 per cent total
experience.
Feedback comes from a variety of sources: people working within the
channel, advertisers, trade, social gatherings, anecdotal experience,"
he said.
"The remaining 50 per cent is gut feel, your analysis of the comparative
environment and what you think is right for that particular market."
Mr Alex Kuruvilla, GM of MTV India and vice-president MTV International,
also believed that research was useful, though not an absolute tool.
MTV subscribes to both TAM and Intam because, Mr Kuruvilla said, "I feel
that it is impossible to believe that you can ignore available
research."
The question that many professionals are asking is - why don't rivals
TAM and Intam pool their resources, combine their small data bases into
a larger, more meaningful one that can track a heterogeneous society
like India more authentically?
Until that scenario becomes a reality, Mr Peter Mukerjea, CEO of News
Television India (News Corp), will remain scathingly critical of the two
agencies.
"The volumes of money spent on research in India is quite staggering and
is structured on thin ice," he said.
"It is not robust enough and is open to interpretation. I'd like to save
money on research and deploy it elsewhere. Or get involved in pan-Asian
research. The opportunities to fudge would be less."
