NEWS20 August 2012
INDIA — TAM Media Research has outlined a six-point plan at a joint meeting of the Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) and the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) to meet concerns over the accuracy of its TV ratings.
The move comes as Indian TV news network NDTV is suing Nielsen and Kantar – the joint owners of TAM – in a New York court over allegations of manipulation of TV ratings data. Reports from India suggest the government is also preparing to investigate the fraud allegations.
Bharat Patel, chairman of ISA, and Arvind Sharma, president of AAAI, issued a joint statement saying that: “As key users of audience research data, advertisers and advertising agencies need to know facts directly from the research agency. And if there are challenges at any level in the research, the research agency needs to share its proposed action plan with us.”
The steps TAM has agreed to take, according to the Business Standard, are:
- Appointment of a security officer and a security agency
- Expansion in the number of meters in the six biggest cites
- A review by the industry of research processes that determine what TAM reports in its weekly reports and what meter homes are left out of reporting for being data outliers
- Getting outlier homes independently audited
- Faster panel rotation
- An internal audit team to be put in place as soon as possible.