What is BARC?
BARC (Broadcast Audience Research Council) India is an industry body set up to design, commission, supervise and own an accurate, reliable and timely television audience measurement system for India.
Guided by the recommendations of the TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) and MIB (Ministry of Information and Broadcasting) notifications of January 2014, BARC India brings together the three key stakeholders in television audience measurement - broadcasters, advertisers, and advertising and media agencies, via their apex bodies
HOW THEY COLLECT DATA
Audio Watermarking embeds audio watermarks in video content prior to upload and broadcast
These watermarks are not audible to the human ear, but can easily be detected and decoded using dedicated hardware or software.- The watermark is broadcast along with the content.
- As viewing details are recorded by the BAR-O-meters, so are the watermarks.
- The raw data is cleaned, merged with the channel, program, language and broadcast schedule details. Universe Estimates are applied to get viewership data.
This gives content owners unprecedented visibility into when and where their content is broadcast, who has viewed it, etc.
As the watermark is part of the content, any attempt to destroy or remove it will also ruin the quality of the material in which it is embedded. This increases the integrity of the data generated by BARC India's ratings.
Transparency in proceedings:
Sample size: The minimum panel size is 20,000 reporting homes, and this number will rise by 10,000 homes every year until it reaches 50,000 reporting panel homes.
Ownership: No broadcasting or advertising company will be allowed to hold more than 10% of BARC's shares.
Advanced watermarking technology:
BARC India uses an advanced, audience measurement technique - audio watermarking, to track content through its broadcast cycle. This is a code inserted into the audio channel of the television signal which transmits through the distribution platforms and cannot be, either deleted or overwritten in the cryptographic family it adopts. This increases the integrity and reliability of the data generated by BARC India's ratings.
Watermark Embedder BAR-O-Meter:
TV usage measurements and viewing data collection is enabled by the use of two digital devices, one installed by the broadcaster (Embedder) at station head end/transmission site(s) and the other device, the BAR-O-Meter is installed on each TV set in the panel household. Where panel households are selected using this criteria - http://www.barcindia.co.in/Description-Of-Methodology.aspx
SOURCE: http://www.barcindia.co.in/index.aspx
JIST OF THE STORY! 😆:
In short BARC is to help advertisers choose the most viewed shows to advertise their products, which in turn means Channel will ask/get more money from Advertisers if their shows run well. So if the shows don't run well, the Channel will loose their money they get through advertisements and hence will tell Production house to do something to get the ratings up of their shows and if everything else fails to get the ratings up, only then they decide to end the show.
But main thing what we as audience should know is that only those who hv these barometers in their home are counted in BARC! If u dont hv it installed in ur house, u are not counted in the rating! So be calm and enjoy NK anywhere(Hotstar or TV) and anytime u like!😉
BUT YEAH MAKING A BUZZ IN THE SOCIAL MEDIA DOES HELP ESP WHEN U TAG THE CHANNEL OR TREND THE SHOW! 😃
