BARC takes first step towards operations; announces technical committee

Shashi Sinha, CEO, IPG Mediabrands, to head the technical committee, while Paritosh Joshi, independent consultant and Smita Bhosale of Hindustan Unilever are the members of the committee.

Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) has announced the formation of a three-member technical committee headed by Shashi Sinha, CEO, IPG Mediabrands, while Paritosh Joshi, independent consultant and Smita Bhosale of Hindustan Unilever are also a part of the committee.

The committee is the first step towards the operational start of the council since it announced the involvement of the three media bodies, Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) and Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI).

Joshi is also the head, technical committee of Readership Studies Council of India (RSCI), while Bhosale has been on the board of Media Research Users Council (MRUC). Since the three members of the committee represent the three stakeholder segments of the industry (Sinha from the agency side, Bhosale from the advertisers and Joshi, who has been a broadcaster for long, represents broadcasters), the priorities of the three sections will be well reflected in the request for proposal (RFP), mentions Joshi.

The brief to the committee is to design the complete research plan, which is a multi-layer exercise. It starts from the design of a plan to the establishment of a study and the analysis and installation of peoplemeters. Evidently, the whole process is a long one and it is expected to take at least a year for BARC to be operational and start processing data.

The plans for the formation of BARC were announced in 2006-07. However, the development was moving at a snail's pace till the recent announcement of the formation of a 10-member board at FICCI Frames 2012.

IBF has 60 per cent stake in the council, while ISA and AAAI will equally hold the balance 40 per cent.