Prime Focus Technologies to offer Play-out Monitoring Service to BARC

PFT will scan over 400 channels on a daily basis, monitoring 35 million hours of content annually.

The Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) has partnered with Prime Focus Technologies (PFT), the technology subsidiary of Prime Focus, the global leader in media and entertainment industry services, to offer Play-out Monitoring Service to power its audience measurement programme.

PFT's CLEAR Media ERP platform bolstered with next generation content identification technology and digital services will help automatically generate play-out monitoring reports on a daily basis, the company has said in an official communiqué.

The company will offer play-out monitoring service which will check the actual telecast of each channel, capture the content at every point in time, and help link it back to the rating piece of the audience measurement system.

Partho Dasgupta, CEO, BARC, says, "With PFT on board we are one step closer to our mission of indigenously building a television audience measurement system that is better than the best in the world. PFT's world class technology, deep understanding of Indian broadcast and advertising industry, and across the board relationships with broadcasters and advertisers as a neutral partner made it the perfect choice for this critical role."

Ramki Sankaranarayanan, founder and CEO, Prime Focus Technologies, says, "It is a great honour to be selected by BARC, and we consider it equally a great responsibility towards the industry. India has one of the largest TV ecosystems in the world and the audience measurement system ought to be highly credible. We look forward to working with BARC to help build India's very own, trusted rating service."

For the record, India has 154 million TV households making it the third largest TV market in the world, next only to China and the US. This will be the first fully digital play-out monitoring service employed directly by the Indian broadcast industry and is scheduled to commence operations in October, 2014.