Many people have tweeted videos of Republic showing up as soon as they switch on their TV set. This is the 'landing page' issue. On the face of it, this is a legitimate way for channels to showcase themselves to new viewers who might otherwise not know about them. (1/n)

The problem comes when it affects TV ratings. That is because a landing page stays on for 30-40 seconds, even 2 minutes as some have claimed, before a viewer can switch to a channel of choice. This can have a profound impact on a channel's REACH. I will explain how. (2/n)

There are two things that advertisers look at -
1) Reach - number of viewers who have watched for at least one minute in any time period
2) ATS - or Average Time Spent per viewer in that period.
A channel uses Reach to show how many people an advertisement can 'reach'. (3/n)

BARC, which publishes TV ratings, collects viewership data every SECOND, but uses MINUTES as the smallest time unit to report the data. If a viewer watches several channels within a single minute, BARC awards the ENTIRE minute to the channel which got the maximum seconds (4/n)

Now, think of what this calculation method does to overall REACH of any channel that has made crores of rupees to get a landing page. If it takes ALL viewers of that cable network 31 seconds to change channels, the 'landing-page' channel will show a REACH of EVERY viewer (5/n)

I repeat, 'Reach' includes any viewer who has watched a channel for at least one minute in any time period. 31 seconds on a landing page will show an artificially high number of viewers who have watched for one minute, because the channel will be awarded the entire minute (6/n)

This will not have a huge impact on the channel's ratings, because the low time-spent per viewer of those who were forced to watch a 'landing page' will not amount to much. But it will make an advertiser believe that this channel is watched in a large number of homes. (7/n)

In fact, this will also give the ratings system a spurious sense of accuracy. Think of BARC's data. It has 40,000 active meters, covering about 1.7 lakh individuals. Data shows that about 30,000 individuals watch Hindi news channels for at least ONE minute a day (Reach) 8/n)

BARC will say it's a robust survey, since it covers 30,000 sample individuals. But, what if half of them were FORCED to watch Hindi news because it was on their landing page? The sample size would drop to 15K, increasing the possibilities of error dramatically (9/n)

The situation is even worse when it comes to English News. Here only about 1,500 sample individuals in meter-homes watch for one minute or more in a day. What if half of these came because of the landing page? The weekly sample would be a ridiculously low 750 individuals. (10/n)

This is the reason why TRAI has repeatedly tried to stop landing pages from being counted in ratings. It has even suggested that a channel should not have an 'audio watermark' (which allows BARC to authenticate it) when it is on a landing page. (11/n)

This has been opposed by most channels who use landing pages to publicise their channel to viewers - or maybe even to boost ratings. Since September BARC has put in place an 'algorithm' to 'mitigate' the impact of landing pages on ratings. (12/n) https://bestmediainfo.com/2020/09/barc-india-to-handle-landing-page-issue-through-algorithms/

Ironically, the very week (Week 34/2020) where BARC put these algorithms in place saw Republic Bharat become the No.1 Hindi News channel. This suggests that other channels were using the 'landing page' MORE than Republic was. Or it means BARC's algorithms aren't working (13/13)