Rohit Bansal
As a country we wear “Truth” on our insignia. But half truths and utter lies stare millions of us, each time we switch on our TV sets. Our biggest TV channels, self-appointed conscience keeper of Democracy, make dodgy claims of being Number 1, but there’s no one to hold them accountable. The bloodbath is most striking amidst channels tracking business, economics and the markets.
Colourful jackets echo what their cousins claim on television. So much for the halo claimed by the print medium. A channel recently let go its senior leader for alleged proximity to market makers. That hasn’t stopped it for claiming Number 1 status for integrity, whatever its method for computing integrity is! Those-who-know brush such vacuous boasts with the amusement they deserve. But busy as we all are, repeated claims do start looking like reality. “Jhooth” told a hundred times becomes “Satya,” after all. Plus, most of us still won’t believe that the media would rely on half-truths so nonchalantly. To be fair, the channels and their newspapers aren’t bulls shitting 100 per cent.
Heard of water in milk? They’re simply passing off milk with water, you see! For dummies, there’s no way yet to know what every single TV viewer in India watched minute on minute. There are an estimated 150 million households in our country. Till technology pulls us out of the morass, “sampling” therefore is the only solution.
For years, the folks at a organisation called “TAM” had the monopoly to that – the results of their weekly exertions over 8,000-10,000 of the 150 million total households became the industry’s holy grail. Advertising bucks rode on what TAM put threw up once a week. Intriguingly, TAM never stated who had done better than the also rans. A maze of numbers were opened up to their subscribers on a predetermined midnight. It was then left to number crunchers within each TV channels to deep dive. In a few hours, each one emerged with their own pearls and “Eureka!” moment.
It’s an open secret that the all critic channels kept colourful mailers ready. Any genre or time time zone or geography, however insignificant in a fiduciary context, is today good enough to flaunt one’s “Number 1” status. There is no shame in the disclaimer within an asterix. At least 6 industry newsletters have bloomed around the mailer industry – they charge the channels money to bombard the self-serving message to a database of influencers and media planners. No one vouches for veracity. To a cartridge makers in a war, who wins or loses hardly matters.
Some channels have had resources beyond mailers. One news channel blew a fortune in print advertising, saying folks in the age group of “4 years and above” preferred them over other news channels. Yes, 4+ in our country chose between news channels, you see! Another one blared over rooftops for viewers delivered between midnight and 2 am. Some would dice it finer. How’s metro viewers in Chennai, watching TV at midnight, aged 4 years and above! LOL A competitor to TAM called aMap tried to break the monopoly. Many thought well of their technology and the fact that ratings came day-on-day. NDTV, in particular, used aMap numbers for print advertisements. Then the numbers stopped coming and the brood of “dice and splice” of sampling numbers went back to TAM. LV Krishnan, the agency’s supreme commander, became our go-to man. In “S Group” he even had a consulting arm which sent folks to TV channels with health tips!
Now, there’s a new organisation which has pushed TAM to the brink. BARC, as the acronym for Broadcast Audience Research Council goes, is led by an affable and erudite industry veteran called Partho Dasgupta. His numbers track a sample of 10,000 (expected to double soon) across devices. Dasgupta’s superior software and guaranteed 30 per cent rural placement has thrown open yet another set of data in the marketplace.
No surprises, the mailer industry is on overdrive. So is print advertising. Truth today is the preserve of those who run the data faster and shout the loudest. So far Dasgupta has only released data on households. Even as this column connects with your fingers, data on individuals will start getting shared too. Get ready for a new circus! Let me tail piece with a poser: If doctors can’t advertise, if lawyers can’t either, given their equally noble duties, shouldn’t news channels be asked to follow a similar self discipline?
