Just came across some more statistics related to TAM and its inadequacies...I have quoted only the important parts of the article...those which emphasis how outdated and inaccurate the TAM system really is!
TOI, Bangalore, August 2, 2012:
"..., at stake now is a credible system to measure viewership of the television industry that commands $2.1 billion in advertising revenues. The NDTV plaint points out that of the over 231 million households in India today. 148 million have a TV connection.
Of this number. 126 million own a cable and satellite (C&S) connection (including 42 million who own a digital TV connection) while 21 million households have access only to Doordarshan.
The segment of 126 million C&S households is growing exponentially with over 10 million households(or 45 million people) added in the last one year alone.
But, of this growing section, TAM only covers the urban segment. Of the 78 million households in Urban India, 69 million households have a TV connection. But TAM covers only 35% with only about 8160 people meters in 155 cities."
TOI, Bangalore, August 3, 2012:
"It is a well known fact that about 8160 boxes are used to extrapolate viewership of 625, 24 hour channels for a population of over a billion.
The TAM system consists of boxes which are installed in a few homes, which then give data on channels watched, their periodicity, etc--all of which are key inputs for advertisers, which is the lifeblood of TV channels especially since they get only one-fifth of the subscription revenue they are entitled to from the cable operators."
"The NDTV plaint too makes the point that the small sample size meant that "bribing and manipulating only a select number of homes" could cause significant change of data. The industry has pointed out that quality of such data is suspect since it was well known that upmarket homes would be the toughest ones to allow an intrusive devise like a people meter in their homes especially since data is collected manually."
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