BARC India ropes in IIT brains for new audience measurement tech

BARC India sought newer methods for channel, content and ad identification as well as alternatives to button-pushing and the meters used for capturing viewership data from panel homes.

The Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India has partnered with Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in a bid to seek technology solutions for better TV audience measurement in India.

BARC India was seeking newer methods for channel, content and ad identification as well as alternative to button-pushing and the meter used for capturing viewership data from panel homes. Students of IIT from across the country were asked to suggest ways of measuring TV viewership habits of 836 million TV owning individuals.

10 IITs from across the country participated in the competition and presented their solutions to a jury.

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IIT Kharagpur’s T.Y.S.S. Santosh came up with the 'best' solution. Santosh's solution can transform large hardware in panel homes to user-friendly smart assistants while also reducing dependency on third parties for channel identification. IIT Kanpur came second followed by IIT Bombay in the placed third position.

Solutions presented by the students are platform agnostic and will be further tested for their feasibility. If proven, they would be adopted into the system.

Speaking about the partnership, Romil Ramgarhia, COO, BARC India says “Indian TV industry is dynamic and its needs are ever-evolving. India faces several unique issues such as power cuts, data connectivity challenges, wide disparity in temperature and climatic conditions etc., all of which impact collection of data. Thus, it is important for us to keep innovating and thinking ahead.”

“Through this partnership, we also want to encourage students to take technology from research labs to end users,” Ramgarhia adds.