MUMBAI: Media planners and buyers and marketers have repeatedly expressed their desire to have a way of tracking how much video is being watched, on TV, on the mobile handset and on OTTs as linear or video on demand. BARC India CEO Sunil Lulla says the monitoring agency may have a solution by 2021.

In a virtual fireside chat  with  indiantelevision.com founder, CEO and editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari, Lulla said that if there is one big takeaway from this pandemic it Is that there has been a huge adoption of digital consumption. Lulla is working very closely with the industry to build something which can offer a  ‘one video view’.

"You may watch TV, you may watch the TV show on your telephone or you may watch an OTT content which is not coming on TV,” he said. “We would like to bring that measure to bear and that’s what we are working towards. We will begin that process next year of being able to share that data in 2021.”

Lulla explained BARC’s previous attempts to monitor digital video consumption were ambitious.

“The industry has been impacted by the pandemic. It’s going to bounce back quickly. What is going to accelerate it is the advertising on digital. That’s where I see BARC’s role playing out in benchmarking, measuring, projecting or stating out on how the consumption is happening and how it is driven," he said. 

Lulla further added that the BARC teams have had conversations with the stakeholders, and the idea is now to have a proof  of concept, build pilots, though it could take a year.