Mumbai: The Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) issued  a statement recently backing Broadcast Audience Research Council (Barc) India’s landing page algorithm.

ISA chairman Sunil Kataria said, “Barc algorithm detects landing page with a very high success rate and once detected, the algorithm seeks to remove any forced and voluntary viewership that gets counted as real viewership for that channel.”

He further said, “This is a fair method and advertisers are aligned on the solution executed by Barc on the issue of landing page viewership.”

As part of its ongoing Data Validation Quality initiative aimed at improving measurement science and mitigating impact on viewership of extraneous factors, Barc has introduced an algorithm into its data validation method to remove the impact of landing page on forced viewership data across channels. This method directly uses inferential statistics to deliver better results across all genres. This has been verified and authenticated by Barc’s technical committee.

Earlier, broadcasters represented under the banner of News Broadcasters Federation (NBF) had questioned Barc data validation method and asked it to completely remove the impact landing page data from its viewership estimates. They claimed that use of landing page by news broadcasters equated to an ‘unfair trade practice’. The association also sent a letter addressed to minister of information and broadcasting Anurag Thakur to resolve the issue.

Established in 1952, the ISA represents the interests of over 170 advertisers, advertising agents and media organisations in the country.