New Delhi: The Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) has issued an advisory to all its members, notifying a scenario where it expects six weeks of instability in viewership ratings after the implementation of TRAI’s New Tariff Order.
ISA attributes the high unpredictability due to change in the manner in which consumers subscribe to TV channels impacting on TV viewership data.
The ISA Executive Council and the ISA Core Media Committee have been in active engagement with BARC Board, Technical Committee and NTO task force over the past few months to arrive at a way forward during this transition period.
The TRAI New Tariff Order (NTO) is a sudden development and as a result the ability to predict the impact of this event is extremely difficult. Considering the fact that the TRAI NTO is across India, its impact will be significantly different in each region given the varied distribution and broadcast landscape of each region.
“This is nearly similar to what GST implementation was for many of our members. NTO, if implemented in true spirit, is likely to have a shift in channel availability and hence possibly consumption landscape also. We will need to give it some time to assess the impact,” stated the advisory issued by ISA, Chairman, Sunil Kataria
The advisory issued by BARC India to ISA has indicated that the panel will continue to be representative during the transition period; however, the viewership data will not be usable given the challenges outlined. It will take a minimum of 6 weeks to assess the stability of the viewership numbers post the implementation of the NTO.
Based on the above mentioned indications from BARC,the ISA Executive Council advised that the viewership data during the transition period should not be used for media planning, evaluation and buying perspectives. It should be noted that the variance in pre and post evaluations will be higher than the usual and will be highly unpredictable. Hence pre and post evaluation should be avoided for this period.
ISA is working closely with BARC on the issues and assured to revert with a clarification shortly on when thedata becomes stable and usable for planning and buying.
Chairman
