Ambika Soni informs Parliament about progress on BARC

NEW DELHI: Pushed by the government in view of the allegations against TAM, the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) is setting up a Technical Committee to proceed with the operational tasks for putting a television rating mechanism measurement mechanism in place.

The Government has also been informed that BARC has taken action to constitute a BARC Advisory High Table.

Giving this information in Parliament today, Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni said though BARC had been registered in July 2010 under the Companies Act, the recommendations of the Dr Amit Mitra Committee "have not yet been implemented by them".

She said BARC was registered "after constant persuasion by the Government" only after the government consistently pushed the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) which had to set up BARC.

Soni reiterated that the Ministry has been regularly reviewing the progress made by BARC towards setting up a transparent and credible TRP measurement system in India.

In June last year, the Minister had told Parliament that BARC had assured the Government that it would file its first TRP report by July 2013.

The Mitra Committee in its report in November 2010 had said BARC would be the main body and organisations like TAM will function under it for the purpose of ratings.

Soni had then said while accepting the report that the number of peoplemeters could be increased from the present 8,000 to 30,000 in the first stage and at least 50,000 later.