India's TAM Sets Up Independent Monitors

In India, Nielsen / WPP joint venture TAM Media Research has set up a 'vigilance desk', headed by a former senior policeman, and a 'transparency panel' of regulation experts, aiming to guarantee the impartiality of its methods and ratings.

The accuracy of TAM's television panel has been called into question in the past year by broadcaster New Delhi Television (NDTV), which launched a suit nine months ago claiming that TAM staff took bribes in exchange for overstating ratings. Recently, NDTV received a setback when New York's Supreme Court ruled that the $1 billion case should be heard in India and not in the US as it had wished.

TAM is the incumbent provider of television audience measurement in the country, but the long-awaited independent body the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) seems after years of delays to be on the verge of finding a new supplier with a new approach, having invited tenders in January this year.

TAM CEO L.V. Krishnan said in a statement that the new desk and panel were aimed at safeguarding the agency's operations. The 'vigilance desk' will be headed by a former top officer from the Maharashtra police department, while the six-member 'transparency panel' of ombudsmen - in fact set up in secret (sic) in December last year - will include M. Damodaran, former Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), broadcasting and ad industry veteran Chintamani Rao; former McDonald's International Media Director Giovanni Fabris; UK television audience expert and BARB and ITV veteran Ivor Millman; former GroupM Insights Director Sheila Byfield; and former MRSI President and Hansa Consulting CEO Praveen Tripathi.

Krishnan said TAM's external audit team should eventually report to this panel, which was necessary partly because of the enormity and complexity of television viewership in India - the TAM system covers 225 towns and cities. He added that the panel will have access to the firm's methods in a way that confidentiality forbids other observers from doing: 'We have opened our back-end for the ombudsmen as they have no vested interests in the data.'

Rao, quoted on Livemint.com. explained the need for the panel: '[TAM] cannot reveal everything to everybody and in India we do not respect that. Now this independent body knows everything about the back-end and can deal with queries from broadcasters if they are not happy with TAM's response.' Two broadcasters quoted on the site said the moves had come too late, after they had become thoroughly disillusioned with TAM's approach.