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DNA Special: BARC's suspension of weekly ratings gives news channels time to instrospect

In ths show DNA, we analyse the 'TRP lockdown' and how news channels can now focus on the real news instead of running a rat race.

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Even as the country is in the Unlock 5.0 phase amid the COVID-19 pandemic, there is one area where the lockdown has been announced from today --- TRP of news channels. The battle for the top spot has not only greatly dropped the level of journalism, but has also infected the fourth pillar of democracy - the media.

Amid row over manipulation of TV ratings, the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) has decided to suspend weekly ratings for news channels for the next 12 weeks.

"Starting with the 'News Genre', BARC will cease publishing the weekly individual ratings for all news channels during the exercise. This exercise is expected to take around 8-12 weeks including validation and testing under the supervision of BARCs Tech Comm. BARC will continue to release weekly audience estimates for the genre of news by state and language," a statement from BARC said.

BARC has said that its technical committee will review the existing parameters of measuring TRP and efforts will be made to prevent any kind of tampering.

The News Broadcasters Association (NBA) on Thursday hailed the decision of the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) to temporary suspend weekly ratings of news channels, and urged the ratings agency to completely overhaul its systems for restoring the credibility of the information it collects. Welcoming the decision, the news broadcasters association said that compromised data is creating a false narrative. NBA is the premier association of private news and current affairs broadcasters.

But now the question is, will it be all right by stopping the TRP data? Will news channels see it as an opportunity to improve and try to stop the declining level of journalism or will everything be the same even after the ban is lifted? These three months will give an opportunity for self-analysis not only for the media but also for you as an audience. In the meantime, you have to decide what kind of journalism you want to see, you want to assess a news channel on the parameters of credibility or on the basis of how much fake news it runs without any investigation and how much fun you enjoy watching such fake news.

News channels are not for entertainment but for information. Today, the world of news channels has started a huge revolution. For the next three months, no channel will be able to say that it is number one. It's time for news channels for self-introspection and self-analysis.

Barc's decision to stop the TRP of News Channels came up for discussion last week when two of the country's major News Channels were accused of tampering with TRP. At least five people have been arrested by the Mumbai Police which busted the scam earlier this month. TRPs were tampered with by sharing the data with a channel in the houses where these convivial parameters were placed. In these houses, a particular channel was asked to be kept on, and in return, they were given money.

Let us understand how TRPs play a role in the media industry.

An average of 20 crore viewers above 15 years of age watch Hindi news channels every week. In the meantime, viewers watch the news for an average of 47 minutes. That is, a channel may be viewed for an average of 10 minutes, someone 15 minutes, one and a half hours. But the average of all these is just 47 minutes. Similarly, the number of viewers watching English News Channels is 1 crore 90 lakh. And these people watch the news on average just 9 and a half minutes.

But against this, the number of viewers of GEC i.e. Hindi's General Entertainment Channels is 34 crore. And these people see these channels on average 2 hours. That is, the audience of General Entertainment Channels is not only one-and-a-half times more than the viewers who watch news, but the time spent by the audience is also nearly twice the time.

The number of viewers who watched Sports Channels during IPL matches in the last two weeks is also much higher than news channels. In the last two weeks, about 21 crore people have seen Sports Channels and spent an average of 76 minutes on these. That means, from the market's perspective, the share of news channels is very small. Yet, the news channels go out of all the slides on the occupation and the result is not true to the audience but only sensational news.

Advertisements on channels are directly proportional to the TRPs of a channel. The more TRP the channel has, the more expensive ads it gets.

By looking at these figures, you may have understood that news channel's share in the world of television is not very high. Around the country, 44,000 homes are fitted with meters measuring TRP and according to experts, on an average throughout the day, 3,000 to 4,000 metres record Hindi news channels. That means only 10 per cent of the people watch Hindi news channels. Now, out of these three and a half or four thousand houses, about 50 houses should also be affected and people in these houses should be asked to watch a special news channel 4 to 5 hours, so the TRP of that channel can grow to 6 per cent.

Suppose, the fight for the No 1 spot is between Channel A and Channel B. And let's say this week Channel A's TRP is 17 per cent, i.e. 17 per cent of Hindi news watchers watch Channel A, while Channel B's TRP is 14 per cent. Now if Channel B manipulates 50 houses, its TRP will increase from 14 to 20. While channel A's TRP may only increase by 1 or 2 per cent. In this way, Channel B will be manipulated to become number one.

Today, we also spoke to some senior journalists on this subject. They said news channels will now have to change their model and prioritize news based on truth, research and ground reporting.

Now, here's a question of whether News Channels will get the same TRP as before and whether the system is currently in force to measure the TRP. Is that system adequate? At present, 44,000 homes across the country are fitted with TRP measuring meters. And a total of 1,80,000 people live in these houses. That means it is just 0.1 percent of the country's population. Now, how can you think that so few people decide what you should be shown and what not?

To bring this into perspective, let us take the example of Andaman and Nicobar, which is one of India's smallest Lok Sabha constituencies in terms of population, where the number of voters is just 2.5 million. So, the choice of the people of the island is not the choice of the entire nation, in the same way how can only 1,80,000 people's choice can be assumed as the final choice.

The annual market for television advertisements is Rs 32,000 crore. If we divide it equally among the 1,80,000 people who have a TRP measuring barometer in their home, the share of each person will be  Rs 17,77,777. But these households are paid merely Rs 400 or Rs 500 for keeping a particular channel switched on on their TV sets, and they don't even know how they are being taken for a ride.

The question now is what is the solution to the problem??  There are currently around 25 crore houses in India that have television. Out of these, 5 crore households have access to private DTH i.e. Direct To Home and 4 crore households see Television through DD Free Dish i.e. in total, 9 crore households in India have DTH. Now, one solution is to put a chip in the Set Top Box of all these DTH homes which will record which channel is being watched in a house will make the sample size of the TRP data larger. But there is one hurdles is that all of these DTH is based on One Way Technology i.e. Down Link through these set top box is possible but data can't be sent out. If this technology is changed, it will cost a lot and these expenses will either have to be raised by broadcasters or advertisers will have to incur the cost. It may not therefore be possible to completely change the system even after 12 weeks.

Media is the mirror of the society. For the next 84 days, all news channels have a huge opportunity to convey the information they want to reach their audience. The purpose of any news channel should be to convey the necessary information and news should be based on research, facts and ground reporting -- that is the true religion of journalism.

 

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