(UNI) The Competition Commission of India has held that TAM Media Research Pvt. Ltd, sole and dominant television viewership measurement firm in India, has abused its position of strength in distorting the true picture regarding TVR/TRP of Doordarshan which has a large viewership in rural areas.
The Commission has ordered an investigation into the matter.
The total number of meters installed by TAM were only 8,000 and these meters were installed in urban areas, ignoring rural viewership and excluding them from TAM services, the Commission found.
In India, within the Television Industry, about 34 per cent of revenue comes from advertisements. The rating generated had a great bearing on advertisement revenue of a channel. It also had adverse consequences for broadcasters besides affecting the interests of the consumers.
It was observed that the sample size of 8,000 homes in a vast country like India, having population of more than 126 crores was also minuscule and misleading. In a country like India with diverse culture, different languages, where the urban population was only 30 per cent and rural population about 70 per cent, not installing people meters in rural areas, prima facie, amounted to restricting use of technology of measuring viewer's choice to the prejudice of customers (in this case Doordarshan), it said.
Doordarshan is the only channel which broadcasts many such programmes like Krishi Darshan, Gyan Darshan, Kalyani, etc., that relate to the taste of rural areas. So not providing people’s meter in rural areas amounted to discrimination to Doordarshan and other similar channels, if any, catering to the needs of the rural areas, the Commission said.
'Due to this discrimination between rural and urban viewers and basing TRP only on the basis of urban viewers, the TAM was prima facie indulging in the practice of denial of advertisement market,' it observed.
'Resultantly, the Commission is of the opinion that prima facie there was sufficient material to refer the case to the Director General (DG) to cause an investigation to be made into the matter under section 26(1) of the Act,' the Commission said in an order this week.
'DG shall investigate the matter about violation of the provisions of the Competition Act. In case the DG finds TAM was in violation of the provision of Competition Act, it shall also investigate the role of the persons who at the time of such contravention were incharge of and responsible for the conduct of the business of the Company so as to fix responsibility.' UNI
