Jamshedpur, July 16: Uttaran or Dare 2 Date? Roadies or Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai? TV addicts in Ranchi, Jamshedpur and Dhanbad will be happy to know that the choices they make on their TV remote have an impact on the Rs 14,800-crore-plus Indian television industry.
Jharkhand recently hitched on the television rating points (TRP) bandwagon with homes in three cities getting chosen by Mumbai-based firm Television Audience Measurement (TAM) Media Research as "sample viewership". In simple terms, in TAM cities, a recording device called a peoplemeter is installed in chosen homes, which records their TV programme preferences and maps out preferences and peak viewing times.
The three TAM cities in the state will account for 1.8 per cent of the total TAM data across the country. At present, all four metros and a number of tier I cities contribute to TRPs. Selection of cities is done on the basis of population density categorised into over-one million and below-one million. The peoplemeter readings are taken on a weekly basis.
This database goes to everybody ' television channels, advertisers, marketers, media ' and provides the fodder for power-packed channel wars such as the ongoing one between Colours and Star Plus.
TAM, a joint venture between Nielsen Company and Kantar Media Research, had been appointed for media insights by industry stakeholders Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA), Indian Broadcast Foundation (IBF) and Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) way back in 1998 and already has a wide sample base across Tier-I and semi-rural towns.
So why did Jharkhand's three cities take 13 years to matter? Is it because television is making deeper inroads in small-town India because of sheer economics?
"The heterogeneity of the market keeps changing with time. If we simplify TRP, it's just about mapping the shifting preferences of TV viewership in society. As the market keeps expanding, it was a statistical call to increase the number of cities," said a senior official of TAM Media Research, Mumbai.
In January 2011, the Union ministry of information and broadcasting directed research companies concerned to extend coverage areas based on the recommendations of an independent three-member TRP committee that suggested greater transparency and an increase in the number of peoplemeters to bring smaller towns within its sweep. The committee also recommended an increase in the sample size from 8,000 households to 15,000 urban and rural household within two years and 30,000 in future.
"TAM in smaller towns means a lot to broadcasters and advertisers, because more people watch TV here. A guy in a metro will go to a pub or a restaurant. His small-town counterpart will watch TV. Mapping his preferences in turn helps advertisers to pump money into the programmes and time slots with highest TRPs, considering that people in small towns have their own choices," said a senior official of a leading private television channel in the country.
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