MUMBAI: BARC India board has elected Viacom 18 group CEO Sudhanshu Vats as its new chairman. The move comes after Zee Entertainment MD & CEO Punit Goenka successfully completed his tenure as the chairman.
BARC India, the Joint Industry Company (JIC) of broadcasters, advertisers and advertising agencies, launched TV measurement currency and expanded measurement of TV viewership to rural India. BARC India recently also launched monitoring of geo-targeted ads through its split beam monitoring service.
Vats heads Viacom18 which is one of India’s fastest growing media organisations with a 40X growth in topline since inception. Under Vats's, leadership the group has expanded its channel footprint from six to over 36 channels and has set up three new lines of business. A management graduate from the Indian Institute of Management - Ahmedabad, Vats is a Hindustan Unilever (Unilever India) veteran and invested around 20 years in the organisation in varied roles.
Vats has been associated with BARC India since its inception and has been a part of all the developments as a member of the Board of Directors.
"It is indeed an honour to be elected as the chairperson of BARC India. In a span of two years, BARC India has been able to build a strong TV viewership measurement system. I feel privileged because this comes at a time when our industry is about to enter its next growth orbit and a robust, comprehensive measurement system will only accelerate this transition. Finally, measurement and analytics is an area of personal interest and I couldn’t have asked for a better way to learn more about it," said Vats.
“Being the chairman of BARC India has been a great experience. We started off with certain ideologies of being transparent, robust and being able to measure “What India Watches”. We brought in a lot of changes in the TV viewership measurement system in order to make it comparable to global standards and, to a great extent, have been able to achieve that. I wish Sudhanshu (Vats) all the best for all the future endeavours,” said Goenka.
“We welcome Sudhanshu as our new chairman. Being a veteran in the industry, Sudhanshu will bring in his larger perspective in the media and entertainment space. Punit, as the first chairman, has given the team the right thrust and the BARC team thanks him for his whole-hearted support,” added BARC India CEO Partho Dasgupta.
BARC India is a joint venture bringing together the three key stakeholders in Television Audience Measurement, Broadcasters, Advertisers and Advertising & Media Agencies. Their respective apex bodies, the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), the Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) and the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI), represent the three industries.
