Now, the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) has written to BARC India to bring to its notice the “unusual” ratings of TV9 Bharatvarsh. The broadcasters’ body also insisted that for the last 8 weeks or more, the ratings have been unusable. It raised concerns about the unprecedented growth of viewership of TV9 Bharatvarsh as well as the frequent substantial swings in English.
The NBF letter, accessed by e4M, said, “Some of our member companies, FTA news channels, solely rely on BARC for the ratings as the only currency to convert into advertising – the predominant source of revenue for our channels. Several of our channels have raised concerns over the past few weeks on the drop in ratings.”
The letter written out on Monday further stated, “On analyzing the BARC data from week of 21, we notice there is a significant change in ratings, which is a matter of grave concern for us, more so during the current pandemic-driven economic crisis, since it determines our survivability. The drop in ratings, as has been witnessed in the past five weeks, threatens our existence while it also raises the issue of transparency and accountability on the BARC reporting of the FTA news genre ratings.”
The numbers put out by Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) for week 25 of the current year for 15+ HSM show that TV9 Bharatvarsh which has been aggressively growing since the lockdown has perched itself clearly at the No 2 spot with 185,325 impressions.
TV9 CEO Barun Das has given a detailed response on e4M’s story reporting NBA and NBF letters to BARC alleging ‘unusual’ rise of TV9 ratings.
Thanks for seeking my response to this rather amusing charge which cast unfounded aspersions on both BARC as an institution and TV9 Bharatvarsh as a business of integrity.
Braun’s response:
- If there is indeed an official letter from NBA to BARC, I would have been happy to have received a copy of the same from NBA so that I could have officially replied to NBA
- Businesses move as per industry but market shares have no relation to industry movements. The two are not always in sync.
- This is a transparent industry. We all have access to BARC ratings; we all have access to the second-by-second content of every competitor in logger.
4. Really, there is no magic or manipulation. Just business basics at work.
5. as far as TV9 Bharatvarsh is concerned, it is still work in progress.
