Cover more homes to avoid 'doctored' ratings: TRAI

To deal with the possibility of 'doctored feedback' while measuring TV viewership preferences, broadcast regulator TRAI has suggested that rating agencies should have a larger number of sample homes than are actually needed to compute data.

"The Authority is of the view that by employing expanded panel homes (panel size plus additional homes) and then sampling the panel homes required for actual computation (panel size) from this expanded panel will reduce the problem of 'doctored' feedback to a certain extent," TRAI has said in its latest recommendations.

TRAI has said that the actual panel homes required for computation shall be randomly sampled from the total panel homes deployed.

It has also suggested that 25% of the panel homes shall be rotated every year. The rotation shall be in such a manner that older panel homes are removed first while maintaining the representativeness of the panel, the regulator has said.

It also has suggested another way, through which chances of viewership being doctored could be minimised is by deploying algorithms to detect unusual viewing behaviour of certain respondents and discarding the data of such panel homes from analysis.

TRAI which submitted its recommendations for TV audience measurement agencies earlier this week said that in its opinion that both these approaches could be employed.

Keeping costs in mind, there could be at least 10% more panel homes deployed than required for computation purpose, TRAI had said.

Currently TV viewership measurements are commercially carried only by one agency TAM. The subject of TV ratings has been a contentious one as broadcasters have in the past often questioned the accuracy of data generated by it.