Market research is an area where one would not usually look for scandals. That too, one worth Rs 3,000 crore. But a two-month-long Outlook investigation has uncovered the sordid fragility of the data on which all Indian television adspend decisions are based.
This is how the system works. trps or television rating points are generated by two regular surveys, Television Audience Measurement (TAM), done by market researcher imrb, and Indian National Television Audience Measurement (INTAM), carried out by ORG-Marg. Both surveys select a panel of households which represent the entire TV-viewing population of India. In these homes, the agencies install instruments called peoplemeters, recording details of the programmes the household watches, for what length of time. From this viewership data are calculated trps, indexing a programme's popularity, based on which corporates and ad agencies take their media spending decisions: which programmes to air their ads on, and which not. The total TV advertising pie in India is Rs 3,000 crore. TV shows live and die according to their trps.
The system seems fair. This is how it is done across the world. But, in reality, there are many loopholes in the system and many points at which it can be tweaked by unscrupulous TV channels to hike their viewership figures. Suppose you could get hold of the list of households which are on the peoplemeter panels. Suppose you could then induce them to keep their TVs tuned to your channel for hours every day. Your viewership figures would jump, and you would rake in the advertising moolah.
Obviously, this list of households should be totally classified information. But Outlook's investigations reveal that these sacrosanct lists are available for a song anywhere in the country. One of our sources needed to spend just Rs 5,000 to obtain the complete Mumbai lists used by TAM and Intam.
The lists have households ranging from A1 category (senior executives/businessmen employing 10 people or more/self-employed professionals with post-graduate degrees) to E2 (unskilled workers/petty traders) spread across the country's length and breadth. But even a cursory glance at the lists shocks. Sample some households in the A1 category in Mumbai.
Address No. 1: Sharma Chawl, Room No. 15, Ground Floor, Netaji Palkar Road, Behind Hanuman Mandir, Asalfa Village, Ghatkopar (W).
Address No. 2: Chawl No. 1, Room No. 2, Sidhanath Mishra Chawl, Suhasini Pawaskar Road, Ghartanpada Highway Road, Dahisar (E).
A1 category?
Kanubhai Joshi (A1) lives in a 27 ft x 8 ft home in Ekta Nagar Chawl, which is somewhere between a slum and a cluster of low-income tenements. He has a small b&w Videocon TV. A full-time lic agent, he wasn't home when Outlook visited but his brother Balkrishnan Joshi, who describes himself as a "part-time poojari", was. "They've taken the meter away now. When it was here, they used to come once a week, and take records of what programmes we watched. We used to get gifts twice every year. We have a clock and some vessels. Our household income per month is about Rs 5,000."
A1-categorised Komal Gupta lives in Trilochan Chawl No. 3, essentially a slum. "My husband is an advocate and the only earning member," she says. "Some months he gets clients, some months he doesn't. On a good month, he brings home Rs 4,000. We have had the meter for the last three years." Komal too received gifts like "purse, vessels and clocks". But last week, "the company people removed the meter and went away."
Vijay Kumar Satam (A1) lives in Farnandis Chawl, a cluster of one-room homes, some with asbestos roofing. Satam works as ground staff for Indian Airlines and refuses to reveal his income, though among the many things his A1 home does not possess are a washing machine and a phone. Satam claims the meter "is a device that registers the kind of programmes people like me with worldview and intelligence watch. When they came with the meter, they asked me my views about television and its impact on society. They were very impressed with my views. That's why they said they were fixing the meter only in my house and not in my neighbours'." His meter too has been removed hastily a few days ago. Clearly, the agency got wind of the investigations.
The direction given to Zamal Nawab's home in Rawnak Chawl is, "after the public toilet and near the mutton stall". Nawab (A2) is a pleasant old man who lives with his wife and 30-year-old son, in a one-room home. He laughs when told he has been classified as "high income". His son, the only working member, works as a medical representative earning Rs 4,000 a month. "Yesterday, they took the meter away."
Huge marketing decisions have been taken on the basis of the programmes people like Joshi, Gupta, Satam and Nawab watch. Decisions on which TV shows to advertise on for expensive cars and five-star hotels and home computers.
ORG-Marg CEO Titoo Ahluwalia refused to comment, merely saying: "Obviously someone wants the ratings to stop. We are investigating." Intam president Ashok Das offers a similar weak explanation that, unfortunately, doesn't answer the critical question about the ease with which these households can be induced to shift their viewing habits and drastically alter trps: "Some names in the list are genuine. Intam carries out a series of panel quality checks to assess the validity of the data. These checks do not prima facie indicate any kind of tampering. For that, members of the panel households would have to be approached, and their cooperation obtained to actively key in false data." Exactly. To be fair, none of the households contacted by Outlook claimed that any TV channel had approached them. But then, who would admit to this anyway? TAM head L.V. Krishnan too refused comment.
But, you could ask: surely the number of households in the panels run to many thousands, if not lakhs? So how could a TV channel bribe so many people? The answer is again shocking.
As per the government's latest estimates, the total number of TV viewers in urban India is around 175 million and for cable and satellite TV, the figure is pegged at 102 million. The number of households covered in Intam, however, is merely 4,405, and TAM, even lower: 3,454. The city of Mumbai (population: 18 million) has a paltry 350 homes with Intam peoplemeters while Delhi (population: 14 million) has 280. If you manage to corrupt a mere 50 of these households in Mumbai, you have control over a full 14.3 per cent of the panel, which is 14.3 per cent of the entire Mumbai population! In Delhi, seduce just 50 households and you get control over 17.9 per cent of the entire population of the Indian capital!
With these households under your belt, you can immediately jack up the popularity of your programmes by 6 to 7 trps. This is a huge jump. Suppose no one in India watches your programme other than these 100 households, you will still manage 6-7 trps. The moment a programme's trps cross 5, it can command a high advertising rate.Advertisers pay anything between Rs 70,000 and Rs 2,00,000 per 10 seconds for a 6-7 TRP programme (say Zee's Basera). And if the trps cross 10 (say Star's Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki), advertisers are willing to pay a huge premium (Rs 2.5-3 lakh per 10 seconds).
And to get your programme's trps to cross 10, you need to corrupt 115, yes, just 115 households! All you need are 35 compliant families in Mumbai, 28 in Delhi, 28 in Calcutta and 24 in Ahmedabad, and you have a 10 TRP rating. "Effectively, the advertiser pays a high premium for 115 homes switching on their TVs for 30 minutes a week," says a TV channel executive. The agencies, imrb and ORG-Marg, charge Rs 5 to Rs 50 lakh per year from their clients (depending on clients' turnover) for supplying TRP data.
Says Ranjan Kapur, chairman, Ogilvy & Mather: "My clients have not called me yet but it is not great news to hear that ratings on which our final analysis is based are doubtful." Agrees Ashutosh Srivastava, associate vice president, Mindshare Fulcrum, hta's media-buying unit: "The fact that such a list has been leaked is distressing. Especially as our analysis is based only on these ratings. It will be serious if there are major drops in the ratings now. This will mean manipulation by agencies. But from now onward, they will hopefully be on guard."
Look closely at the trps of various programmes and some strange anomalies hit you immediately in the face. Sample just one case. Intam has a classification called Working Male. By definition, this category of people should be out of the home in the afternoon. But according to Intam's reports, a large percentage of them routinely watch afternoon repeats of prime time soaps! Aren't these people—the Working Males—supposed to be out of the house in the afternoon? But Intam would make you believe that they are not. And remember, there is no chance of these people watching the shows in restaurants, bars or offices, because all peoplemeters are located in residential houses and not in any commercial establishment.
Honestly, I am surprised that it has taken so long for the nation to realise this fraud," says Dr Bhaskara Rao, chairman, Centre for Media Studies, who was actively associated with the ratings business during his stint as chief of org, before its merger with Marg. "Initially, the ratings were only taken from four metros and the nation's ratings were calculated on second-hand machines imported from South Africa and Canada. And unfortunately till date, India does not have the ideal machines which the West uses. The entire system is fraught with loopholes."
Advertisers are in a tizzy. Says a spokesman for Hindustan Lever, the country's biggest advertiser with a Rs 1,404-crore advertising and promotion budget (a significant section of it for the electronic media): "In such a system, confidentiality of viewers' identities is of paramount importance. In case there has been any breach in the security system protecting such identities, it must be immediately rectified."
Similar is the case with the channels. "This is scandalous," says Sony Entertainment Television CEO Kunal Dasgupta. "It shows programmes are being rated with fudged figures and agencies merrily signing new contracts worth lakhs. The guilty should not go scot-free. But now that the rot has been noticed, hopefully things will be better in the future." Agrees News Television India CEO Peter Mukerjea: "Such news is distressing, very very distressing.Ratings are of paramount importance because it forms the basis of a client's complete financial calculations."
Says Sandip Goyal, CEO of Zee Telefilms: "Rating institutions have taken a solid credibility knock. I will not believe the ratings. This shows programmes on some of the channels have been arbitrarily rated for long. The guilty must be exposed."
Interestingly, a recent study by the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) on TV ratings noted that the systems cover only a small percentage of the total urban TV viewers. "There is a big gap in the coverage, particularly in the Hindi belt and many states in east and northeast India. The ratings should be much more realistic," the study said, adding: "The twin systems of TAM and Intam often cause confusion."
And now, broadcasting industry's biggest jolt has raised the all-important issue of a complete revamp of the rating system. While some feel that a monitoring agency would be an ideal answer, others believe a single rating system will help enhance the coverage to more urban TV households and enable more regular updates. Intam and TAM have also decided to scrap most of their old respondent lists and build a fresh sample audience panel. The IBF has now summoned a top-level meeting in Mumbai on September 14 to deliberate on issues like how the leak happened and seek alternatives to the current crisis. Besides Prasar Bharati chairman Anil Baijal, heads of all private channels are expected to attend.
But it will take many months before advertisers and channels start believing the TRP mantra again.
With Manu Joseph
