TELEVISION RATING SYSTEM IN INDIA: AN ANALYSIS OF THE SHORTCOMINGS AND THE CONTROVERSIES

Television rating in India is going through the most controversial and transitional phase since its inception. While, the methodology of the rating agency TAM has always been under scanner and the industry has been mulling an alternate system for quite sometime now, it is for the first time that a big segment of the industry as openly boycotted the ratings and has gone to the extent of unsubscribing its data. While advertisers and advertising agencies are still backing TAM with an argument that a bad rating system is still better than no rating at all, it is very clear that to satisfy the needs of all stakeholders, the sole currency of the Indian television rating needs to be reinvented and there needs to be some serious thinking done before arriving at any decision related to its new methodology. The aim of this research is to look into the pros and cons of various controversies surrounding TAM and the reasons behind it.