The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB), Government of India, recently unveiled a draft amendment to its 2014 policy guidelines for television rating agencies. With a 30-day public consultation window now open, this move signals a decisive step toward modernising India’s audience measurement ecosystem. At the heart of this reform lies an urgent call: to bridge the gap between outdated regulatory foundations and the transformative shifts reshaping how Indians consume content.
The Foundation of GGTAM and the Current State
India’s television audience measurement landscape has long relied on the principles of the Global Guidelines for Television Audience Measurement (GGTAM). These serve as the foundational framework for Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India—the country’s primary rating agency. BARC currently operates a panel of 57,500 households, representing over 210 million TV homes. Its system incorporates stratified sampling, establishment surveys, and people-meter technology, aligning with global norms.
However, this robust methodology still leans on demographic data from Census 2011. Though periodically refreshed, this 14-year-old baseline has grown increasingly inadequate in capturing today’s diverse, platform-agnostic viewing habits. Three disruptive forces in particular have exposed this gap:
1. Digital India: The Connected Revolution
The Digital India initiative has fundamentally reshaped television viewership. Today, 23% of Indian users are digital-only, and Connected TV (CTV) has attracted 35 million new viewers. This shift has created a premium segment largely invisible to traditional TV metrics.
Moreover, rural India—once reliant on linear TV—is rapidly coming online, amplifying the need for cross-platform, device-inclusive measurement systems. The current framework, anchored in a pre-digital demographic, falls short in capturing these nuanced changes.
2. COVID-19: The Accelerated Viewing Revolution
The 2020 pandemic turbocharged media consumption. Within the first week of lockdown, total TV consumption rose by 37%, hitting 1.21 trillion viewing minutes. Average daily viewership surged to 4 hours and 39 minutes, while channel exposure grew from 16 to 22 channels per viewer.
This abrupt spike exposed the rigidity of legacy measurement systems that struggle to capture sudden behavioural shifts in real time, especially during national crises.
3. JioCinema and the Digital Streaming Disruption
Perhaps the most striking shift came in 2023 with JioCinema’s (Now JioHotstar) decision to stream the IPL for free. The outcome was historic: 45 crore viewers tuned in digitally, surpassing linear TV audiences. The final alone drew 12 crore viewers with a peak concurrency of 3.2 crore—a global digital viewership record.
Such massive digital migration highlights a core flaw in current measurement models: an inability to track audience dynamics across OTT platforms at national scale.
International Best Practices: A Comparative Lens
Global benchmarks show how other nations have successfully evolved their measurement systems to stay relevant in a hybrid media environment.
France: Médiamétrie’s Multi-Screen Integration
Médiamétrie introduced a dual-panel system in 2024:
- The Médiamat Panel of 5,000 TV-equipped homes + 500 homes without TVs.
- A portable measurement panel tracking 5,000 individuals across devices.
They measure content consumption across TVs, smartphones, tablets, laptops, and plan to include Netflix, YouTube, and Prime Video—setting a high bar for holistic measurement.
Canada: The BBM-Nielsen Convergence Model
Canada addressed fragmentation through a strategic BBM-Nielsen merger in 2019. This unified system eliminated duplication, delivering one consistent national measurement. The convergence model enabled cross-industry trust and efficiency without adding new agencies.
Italy: Auditel’s Total Audience Revolution
Launched in December 2024, Auditel’s “Total Audience” system combines:
- Multi-device measurement across 26 million households.
- Integration of Live, VOD, TSV, and streaming data.
- A hybrid model merging panel data with census-based analytics.
This system now informs €4.3 billion in ad spending and exemplifies how comprehensive measurement can power industry transformation.
MIB’s Policy Response: A Move Towards Reform
The Indian government has acknowledged the changing landscape. On July 2, 2025, MIB released a draft amendment to the Television Rating Agencies Guidelines, now open for public comment. Key changes proposed:
- Legal Modernisation: Only companies registered under the Companies Act, 2013 can apply for rating licenses.
- Conflict of Interest Provisions: Rating firms cannot provide consultancy services that interfere with their primary function.
- Structural Streamlining: Removal of restrictive clauses (1.5 and 1.7), previously barring equity stakes and cross-holdings in related media businesses.
These updates reflect an intent to simplify the framework while upholding data integrity and operational independence.
The Path Forward: Upskilling vs. Adding New Agencies
Global precedents suggest that the way forward lies not in multiplying agencies but in enhancing existing ones—notably BARC India.
Technological Advancements
BARC is exploring Automatic Content Recognition (ACR), AI-powered analytics, and real-time data integration via collaborations with IITs. These innovations aim to transform bulky people-meters into smart assistants.
Convergent TV Trends
With linear and digital TV increasingly indistinguishable for advertisers, India needs measurement systems that bridge this divide. Fragmenting the market with multiple agencies would be counterproductive.
Recommendations: Building Future-Ready Measurement
India’s future-ready measurement strategy must start with technical upgrades that enable multi-device tracking, real-time analytics, and integration of OTT data into mainstream metrics. Drawing inspiration from Médiamétrie and Italy’s Total Audience model, these changes would help Indian systems align with modern viewership patterns across screens.
Methodological reform is equally vital. Replacing the outdated Census 2011 with annual establishment surveys, forming structured partnerships with OTT platforms, and deploying cross-platform deduplication methods will ensure data quality and granularity.
On the regulatory front, updated guidelines must reflect digital-first behaviour by mandating data sharing from OTT platforms, updating content attribution policies, and incorporating digital metrics into standard frameworks.
Finally, true transformation requires cohesive industry collaboration. By adopting unified data-sharing models like Canada’s, India can create joint advisory councils across broadcasters, digital platforms, and advertisers to standardise metrics and foster collective trust.
Return Path Data: The Next Frontier
Return Path Data (RPD) presents a powerful complement to panel-based measurement by offering large-scale, real-time insights from existing set-top box infrastructure. Its ability to capture second-by-second granular data at massive scale makes it both a cost-effective and scalable solution for India’s complex media landscape.
Globally, countries like Canada, the USA, Malaysia, and Hong Kong have already embraced RPD as part of hybrid measurement models. Canada’s CRTC mandates data sharing through Numeris, while Nielsen in the US combines panel and big data from 75 million devices. Asia-Pacific markets have similarly adopted hybrid systems to blend accuracy with breadth.
In India, BARC has initiated RPD partnerships with Airtel Digital TV and DEN Networks, while the Ministry has recommended embedding RPD functionality in future set-top boxes. With such infrastructure already in motion, India has a unique opportunity to fast-track RPD adoption as a foundational pillar of next-generation audience measurement.
A Call for Bold Evolution
India’s measurement system stands at a defining moment. Reliance on Census 2011 and outdated metrics is no longer sustainable in a world reshaped by digital streaming, pandemic-era behaviour shifts, and connected viewership.
Instead of splintering the market with new agencies, India must emulate global leaders and focus on technological integration, regulatory clarity, and industry-wide convergence.
With the MIB’s proposed amendments and public consultation underway, the opportunity is ripe to recalibrate India’s ratings architecture. By combining the scale of RPD with the precision of panel-based methods, India can finally build a measurement system fit for its complex, evolving media landscape.
The time for incremental change is over. It’s time to leap forward.
Contributed By Vishal Khanna, Founder – Media Pro Research Technologies | PhD Scholar – NMIMS” An Independent Media Veteran.
