Explained: What are TRPs and How Are they Calculated?

How are TRPs calculated? Find out.

What are TRPs and why are they important.

(Photo: The Quint)

If you’ve been wondering what the brouhaha over TRPs is all about, let’s break it down for you to the very basics.

What is TRP?

TRP stands for Television Rating Points - it’s a measure that lets people judge which television show is being viewed more on which channel and at what time. So TRP essentially is a tool that helps an agency measure the popularity of a show on any channel and eventually rank which channel grabbed more eyeballs for the maximum amount of time.

Why are TRPs Important?

It’s a simple equation - higher TRPs = higher visibility = higher revenue. In the cut-throat world of privately owned TV channels, TRPs validate your popularity in the rat race but more importantly, it translates into more revenue because companies decide to spend their advertising budgets on the basis of which TV channel is scoring higher TRPs.

Who Calculates TRPs?

In India there have been several television rating agencies that calculate TRPs, these are namely TAM, Indian National Television Audience Measurement (INTAM), Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) and Doordarshan Audience Research Team (DART), which solely focuses on rural areas. TAM is owned by IMRB, the research wing of HTA, while INTAM is owned by ORG-MARG. BARC, India is a joint industry body founded by stakeholder bodies that represent Broadcasters (IBF), Advertisers (ISA) and Advertising & Media Agencies (AAAI). It is also the world’s largest television measurement science industry-body.

According to a report in August 2019 both TAM and INTAM were to be merged into a single entity in 2020 because the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), had recommended that TAM and INTAM should be merged to create a single rating system for television programmes.

How is TRP Calculated?

These are a few methods by which TRPs are calculated using electronic devices:

• People’s Meters: Some agencies use a ‘People’s Meter’, which is a gadget attached to the television in the households of the sample size being surveyed. This device records the time and the program that the viewer watches on a particular day. After that an average is taken on a weekly basis to know the viewership status. The recorded information is then analysed by the agency which then puts out the data in TRP terms.
• Picture Matching: A relatively new and more reliable technique for calculating TRPs in India is Picture Matching, in which the People’s Meter continuously records a small portion of the picture that is watched on a particular television set. This data is collected from the sample homes and used to calculate the TRPs on a national scale.
• Audio Watermark: Audio Watermarking embeds audio watermarks in video content prior to upload and broadcast. These watermarks are not heard by the human ear but can be detected and decoded when it is broadcast to derive viewership data.

What is the Sample Size for TRP Data?

According to a report from April 2020, BARC’s current sample size is 44,000. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had recommended that the agency’s sample size be increased to 60,000 by the end of 2020 and to 100,000 by the end of 2022.