MUMBAI: Advertisers are soon going to get a boost through outdoor TV measurement ratings. The Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) is going beyond traditional TV viewing metrics and has launched an out of home (OOH) TV viewership measurement service. It will now be able to report TV viewership that happens in social hot-spots like restaurants, pubs and bars in select cities.
This is a game changer for the industry as it uncovers a significant share of TV viewership that wasn’t being measured until now. The current OOH measurement service tracks viewing across 900+ establishments in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore, using 1500+ meters.
BARC India’s OOH measurement, which captures the growing trend of TV viewing outside homes, is a pre-subscribed service.
“With our commitment to measure ‘what India watches’, it was a natural step for us to measure OOH viewing. This is also aligned with our goal of measuring content wherever it plays- irrespective of screen or pipe. Measuring OOH viewing is another initiative towards this objective. The robust technology backbone we have set up allowed us to seamlessly measure out of home viewing. We will continue to offer more such path-breaking services that yields sharper insights to industry,” said BARC India CEO Partho Dasgupta.
Star has been the first network to subscribe to this service for the ongoing Indian Premiere League (IPL). Since sports is the most popular TV content outside of the house, especially in social gatherings, the addition will give a big thrust to Star for the tournament.
As per available data, OOH viewing generated a total of 19.4 million impressions for the first eight IPL matches in the three cities. This, if compared to BARC India’s currency panel in these markets, is an additional 10 per cent viewership. The OOH data is a sample study across Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. If a study was done for other similar cities one could expect to see a comparable lift in viewership.
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