BARC India readies itself for digital measurement

The company has called for global RFIs to understand the capabilities of measurement techniques vis-a-vis panel and census measurement, across video types, devices and platforms.

The Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India has issued a global Request for Information (RFI) as it readies itself to extend audience measurement into the digital space.

According to the company, television today, is a cross-platform medium, available through a variety of distribution systems, including Broadcast, IP, mobile networks, and a growing number of connected screens through which audio-visual content is consumed.

According to BARC, it has built a path-breaking audience measurement system for the Indian television market with the initial focus being on measuring TV viewing habits via BAR-O-Meters through watermarking technology.

The company adds that for digital measurement, the RFI stage is limited to understanding the capabilities of online video advertising and content measurement techniques with regard to panel and census measurement across video types, devices and platforms. After gathering this information, the company will issue a subsequent Request for Proposal (RFP) that is realistic in its scope.

BARC India, through this process, aims to measure all forms of online video advertising, including ad breaks in live streams, pre-roll and mid-roll videos, and targeted/addressable advertising linked to the content on broadcaster sites or social media, or any other website/apps.

In the RFI, applicants need to outline:

How their offerings work

What types of video, devices and platforms the company is able to measure

The level of detail

Whether the approach requires third party action (tagging, encoding, or API)

An official statement asks interested parties to send their interests to digitalrfi@barcindia.co.in before December 24, 2015. The final solution draft submission deadline is January 22, 2016.

"At BARC India, our aim is to continually evolve in a way that suits the ever-changing content viewing habits. After rolling out television viewership measurement in the country, we are now ready to take the next leap towards measuring digital viewing," says Partho Dasgupta, CEO, BARC India.