BARC is an industry body that is created to design a system to check the television viewership, maintain accuracy in the TRP data and check for irregularities or fraud in the viewership.
According to international standards, a person watching television for more than a minute is considered a viewer and thus a body was required to judge and calculate the viewership data. BARC India was formed in the last decade and it currently measures the data of around 200 million households in the country. It aims to provide transparent and accurate data and is guided by TRAI (Telecom Regularity Authority of India).
The body is governed by the Indian society of advertisers, the Indian broadcasting foundation, and other agencies. It provides data about people from different socio-economic backgrounds, geography, and age groups and estimates the viewership. It is done by implying two techniques - use of Barc O Meter and calculation of households with television sets. The former is done by checking out the viewing details as well as calculating the duration of embedded audio watermarks. These watermarks are there in every channel but they are inaudible to human ears because of their very low frequencies.
Importance of BARC
in modern times, data manipulation is a malpractice which is done by several TV channels across the world to get more advertisement. Channels get most of their revenue through advertising. The advertisers pay hug load of money for a few seconds advertisement on a TV channel. The rates are determined keeping in mind the ratings of the channel and the show during which the advertisement is placed. Advertisers get this data from BARC, which determines and regulates the ratings. What some channels do is they manipulate this data to get more revenue.
The case of fake TRPs
BARC came to limelight recently when Mumbai police found out that several news channels are bribing poor households to keep their television on and running all day long to get views. This scam ks being done by many channels to increase their TRPs. BARC clarified their instance in the whole argument and cooperated in the whole investigation.
How BARC installs Barc O Meter
It is interesting to know that these Barc O Meters are installed by BARC in only a few selected televisions. This is done by conducting a survey and randomly selecting some channels out of 3000 households. The owner doesn't know if their TV has a Barc O Meter and therefore they cannot manipulate the data. The watermarks produced by these meters are observed and carefully recorded by the agency to know the exact ratings of the channel.
