BARC appoints Partho Dasgupta as its first CEO

Dasgupta will be the first CEO. Earlier, BARC was led by Punit Goenka, chairman.

Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India has appointed Partho Dasgupta as the first CEO of the organisation. This is the first time BARC has appointed a CEO as until now, the organisation was under the leadership of Punit Goenka, chairman.

Dasgupta has worked with media companies such as Times Now and Future Media, and has worked in leadership positions with The Economic Times during its growth years. He was also associated with Educomp, running its preschool business and k12 new school initiatives.

Goenka, MD and CEO, ZEEL and chairman, BARC, says "BARC is moving ahead aggressively with its plans. Partho has an excellent background in leadership, in successful start ups, in broadcast, in research, in consumer products and in other industries. He will help us put the organisation in place and roll out BARC's services in a tight time frame."

In an official communiqué, Dasgupta says, "The foot is on the pedal - we have to just start accelerating. On a serious note, I am happy to do another start up in broadcast and media. The board is full of friends from the industry and I am looking forward to working with them and make BARC happen."

BARC is a joint industry body set up in India in 2012 with the specific purpose of designing, commissioning, supervising and owning India's television audience measurement system. BARC is a joint venture that brings together the three key stakeholders in television audience measurement - broadcasters, advertisers and advertising and media agencies.

Their respective apex bodies, the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), the Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) and the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI), represent the three industries. The three way alliance ensures that the sizable resources - financial as well as intellectual - required to mount such a massive, continuously running initiative are made available within a robust, transparent and accountable governance framework.

It may be recalled that in November 2012, BARC 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.