MUMBAI: It was a day which kept most media hacks on their feet: a day when we all expected some big news to break - that the broadcasters vs advertisers feud had been resolved. But through the day, despite calls to all our sources, very little was forthcoming.

However, a short while ago we got a breakthrough. One of our sources called up and told us about the gist of the discussions. ?There were four points that were put up,? he said. They are:

* Monthly reporting of channel viewership vs weekly reporting

* Viewership in absolute numbers vs percentage share

* Exclusion of niche channels such as Star World from reporting totally.

* Exclusion of news channels from reporting totally or only reporting them on a monthly basis.

The idea was that the Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) and the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) speak to each other and come up with what is agreeable to all of them ? and would be agreeable to broadcasters ? on the above issues. Which they did till post lunch.

Simultaneously, broadcasters were supposed to congregate and agree to what permutations and combinations would be OK with them on the above issues.

Which again they did.

By evening the three parties were supposed to speak to each other with the ISA and AAAI presenting their proposals to the broadcasters and vice-versa. If all things worked out, a framework would then be drawn up to roll out the agreement to industry and to media.

Says a senior broadcasting professional: "All I can confirm is that a lot of talk is happening between the parties involved. Things are beginning to happen but it is still at a very sensitive stage. The negotiation will take some time to take shape. So, we need to be patient and let the parties talk."

Adds Set Max EVP and business head Neeraj Vyas, "A lot of discussions are taking place on the issue. Even as we speak, there are calls being made and in the next 48 hours or so there will be sanity. Everybody has to coexist. There will be a consensus. We depend on them and they depend on us. TV is an important medium for most brands. Everybody understands that. We play a big role in the way their products move. So I am sure there will be a consensus between the two bodies."

"You will see a resolution soon," agrees Multiscreen Media COO NP Singh. But he is not willing to commit on the timeframe.

Industry sources dismissed reports in a leading financial daily that broadcasters had agreed to go back to weekly ratings. "There is still some ground to be covered," they said. "The publication jumped the gun."

This was at the time of writing at 7:25 pm on 17 July 2013.

MUMBAI: Television news broadcasters want ratings data weighing their performances to halt for a longer period of time as many of them negotiate to seal carriage deals with cable TV operators on their digital networks.

Living with something that has been a constant shadow of his life for years, the chief executive officer of a leading news organisation says that the weekly ratings released by TAM Media Research would not reflect an actual picture at this stage when their channels are yet to settle on digital cable TV.

?Several news broadcasters are yet to sign their carriage deals. Since the placement of the channels on the digital cable networks are not fixed and the EPG (electronic programme guide) is also not finalised, it will be unfair to have ratings during this period. There is a ?pick up? issue and for niche and news genres the margin of error in capturing true ratings can be wild,? says the executive on condition of anonymity.

Pouring their energies into persuading the government, the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) has managed to defer the release of ratings data for at least a few days. The Information and Broadcasting Ministry has called for a meeting, likely to be held on Friday, between the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), the NBA, Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA).

TAM, India?s sole TV audience measurement agency, was supposed to report on 19 December the data for the last nine weeks in a digitised environment. This would have for the first time captured the viewing trends after the four metros went cable digital on 1 November, something which the media agencies have been particularly waiting for as they decide on distributing advertising spends for their clients.

News broadcasters fear the ratings would go against them in this fluid situation when many of them have not sorted out the distribution of their channels and the set-top box (STB) deployment has behaved erratically in the four metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai that fell under digitisation in the first phase.

?Even seeding the STBs took time. It may have picked up faster in Delhi and Mumbai, but Kolkata was nowhere in the scene in the initial days. Chennai is still bad. And ideally the EPG should have been in place by 1 November. The data can be accurate when things stabilise first,? says a senior executive working in a TV news outfit.

Kolkata has made progress and the I&B ministry has cracked the whip for switching off of all analogue television signals in the West Bengal state capital by 27 December. Chennai is the only city still to go digital as the Madras High Court is hearing a petition filed by associations of cable operators. The court has scheduled a hearing in the last week of this month.

Another issue of worry is that while some news broadcasters (particularly those who are part of larger networks who have entertainment channels in their product portfolio) have concluded their carriage deals, the others who are still negotiating with the multi-system operators (MSOs) will be under tremendous pressure if the ratings data steps out of the doorstep of TAM.

?There is still an imbalance for those whose carriage deals are pending. For the news genre which has a small share in the overall TV viewing universe, this state of flux can be very harmful,? says the head of distribution at a news company who is yet to finalise carriage deals with some MSOs.

Already reeling under pressure to up their revenues, news broadcasters do not want media agencies to further dictate terms. ?We need more time for things to settle,? says the CEO of a news network.

There is a bigger worry for the TV news outlets. For correcting their business models, they need their ballooning carriage payouts to shrink. They fear that the "pre-mature" release of ratings data at this stage will reduce their bargaining power with the MSOs they are in discussions with for fixing the carriage amounts.

With all these anxieties in mind, it is no surprise that news broadcasters have found new energy in their campaign against the immediate release of ratings data by TAM. But it remains to be seen how long the broadcasting community will unite to stick to this common purpose. Entertainment networks, who spend big budgets on their programming, will need to know how their shows have been accepted among their audiences and, more importantly, they need to tell this to the media agencies for getting the right ad rates.

?The way out is to allow ratings data to flow in across other genres except news. At least for some more time,? says a news channel ad sales executive.