Meterology Data born of BARC and TAM union


Details

Rebecca Hawkes

| 10 February 2016




The joint venture between India’s television ratings bodies the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) and TAM Media Research has been officially named as Meterology Data Pvt Ltd (MDL).



TAM Media Research is to quit the television audience measurement business on 29 February 2016, after which MDL will enter the market.

BARC India will have full management control of MDL with a 51% stake, while TAM – backed by Nielsen and Kantar – will have a 49% stake.

All of TAM’s audience measurement meters will be re-deployed in panel homes selected by BARC India’s sample design. This joint venture will help BARC India in growing its sample size to 34,000 meters covering all of India. MDL’s role will be to run and manage the meter operations and supply raw data to BARC India.

The spot monitoring and channel monitoring data will be exclusively sold by BARC India to broadcasters, agencies, advertisers and others.

“The industry was eagerly waiting for this merger to be completed from the time we announced it in August last year. We are happy to state that the joint venture company is complete and all set to kick-off operations,” said Partho Dasgupta, CEO, BARC India.

Kantar CEO Eric Salama added: “We will work closely with BARC to ensure a good outcome for the industry and our joint clients. We have worked productively with BARC to get here and under the circumstances, have agreed a good way forward for everyone concerned.”

The joint venture came into being after the Indian Government introduced regulations preventing any company or legal entity from having paid-up equity in excess of 10% simultaneously in rating agencies and broadcasters, advertisers or advertising agencies.

Kantar, which has a 50% stake in 15-year-old TAM Media Research, is owned by the global advertising giant WPP – which excluded it from continuing operation. Nielson India owns the other 50% of the Mumbai-based media research agency.