"I would like to put IRS back on track": Ashish Bhasin, chairman, MRUC

Bhasin was appointed as chairman of the body yesterday.

Ashish Bhasin, chairman and CEO, Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN), South Asia, is "pleased" to be "entrusted" with the responsibility of leading the Media Research Users Council, within the capacity of chairman.

The governing council of the MRUC, in its meeting, unanimously elected the DAN boss as chairman of the industry body, yesterday. The board also announced the appointment of Pratap Pawar, chairman and MD, Sakal, as vice chairman, MRUC.

In an exclusive interaction with afaqs!, Bhasin says he is pleased that he has been entrusted with this responsibility. "I am pleased because of two reasons; one, it’s great to be a part of such a competent board of senior people... very experienced vice-chairperson... it will be a pleasure to work with all of them," he says.

His second reason shows he is already set on fixing a few cracks in the system: "Secondly, I believe the IRS (Indian Readership Survey) is a very important part of our industry. It has been a leading light for the last several years... off late, as we all know, there has been a little delay. I would like to make it the gold standard and put it back on track so that it is out on a regular basis. A lot of work has already been done by a lot of people and I hope we will be able to bring that all together," he asserts.

Recall that in 2014, the IRS authorities found themselves in a middle of a crisis when several newspaper brands collectively rejected the IRS 2013 report because they claimed to have found several anomalies in it. Read our coverage here

For the record, MRUC is a not-for-profit body that comprises members from different fields - advertisers, advertising agencies, publishers and broadcast media. MRUC was founded in 1994 to conduct and release periodic research for measuring the effectiveness of media for advertising.