Television Rating Point

Ratings are the most visible form of research used in broadcasting as well as the most influential in the decision making process. Now Television Rating Point(TRP) is a regular phenomenon. Every week, in Newspaper, in Television ,we are experiencing about which channel and which particular programme has highest rating point.

Then what is TRP ?
According to Times of India, June 8, 2003, Television Rating Point (TRP) is a tool provided to judge which progrmmes are viewed the most. This gives us an Index of the choice of people and also the popularity of a particular channel.

At the time of Bigboss, Indian Idol, Kaun Banega Crorepati(KBC), Naach Baliye, Saregama singing superstar and so on, the TRP goes up, because of large viewership for this programmes. TRP competition comes with this channels.


Then obviously a question will come up in our mind that why this TRP competition, why do we need these ratings we know that- with the hundreds of crores of rupees spent annually on TV Programmes and commercials, reliable TV audience information is required to evaluate and maximize the effectiveness of this investment. This has led to the ever increasing desire by broadcasters, advertisers and advertising agencies to have accurate, consistent and detailed information about TV audiences. Media Planners and buyers evaluate the alternative programmes offered to best achieve their advertising goals, broadcasters evaluate programmes or a station's popularity and how much to change advertisers for commercials during a programme or on a given channel. In those capes where the channels are funded wholly or partly by public licence, they provide accontability.
Measurement of viewership is not a simple process. It's also a research and there are many ways to measure the audiences. One is through random telephone calls (if teledensity is satisfactory. Another is by using TV diaries, booklets in which samples of viewers record their Television viewing during a measurement week. However, with the increasing numbers of channels, multiple broadcasting platfroms and increased numbers of TV sets and remote controls per family, electronic gadgets called 'people meters'are used to measure audiences. The people meter reads the frequencies of channels, which are later, decoded into the name of the channels and the agency prepares a national data on the basis of its sample homes readings.The world's first people meter was installed in 1976 in 500 homes in Italy by LCM Graman, an Italian market research company. Today, AC Nielsen, AGB Group and Gallup are the three leading TAM agencies.


Presently, INTAM (Indian Television Audience Measurement) is the only electronic rating agency functioning in India. INTAM uses two methodologies for calculating TRP. First is frequency monitoring, in which 'people meters' are installed.It is about the size of a paperback book, is placed on each TV set in the sample home. The box has buttons, and lights are assigned to each person who lives in the household . Each meter is capable of accurately monitoring every second, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, what is being viewed on each TV set and by whom. The meter stores this data. The data is then periodically transmitted by means of the family's telephone line, or a dedicated cellular telephone line to a central computer for analysis. In actual practice, all the three methods are used in combination, for increasing the accuracy and for crosschecking.

Second technique is more reliable and relatively new to India. In picture matching technique people meter continuously records a small portion of the picture that is being watched on that particular television set. Along with this agency also records all the channels' data in the form of small picture portion. Data collected from the sample homes is later on matched with the main data bank to interpret the channel name. And this way national rating is produced.

Sometimes TRP methods create embarrassing situation, as it gives gives inadequate final datas, ratings due to some draw backs in the technique. Then certainly a question raises that how reliable are TRO ratings?

As with any sampling of rating research, TRP ratings could be inaccurate due to sampling errors like inadequate coverage of the TV owning population. In India, for example, TAM ratings are based on people meters installed in only 16 top cities in nine states. And it has drawback, as cable operators frequently change their frequencies of the different channels before sending signals to the homes. It may be very misleading to read a channel according to a particular frequency even if the down linking frequency is small all over India.

But now days, different modern technologies are being used for research, still it approaches a sharp technique and an adequate procedure for the rating research, which will reliable for the audience and commercial sectors.