BARC forms global alliance for video views measurement

India’s television viewership measurement body has formed an alliance with its counterparts in France, Canada and Japan to chart the future of video audience measurement, a development that comes at a time when technological advances are disrupting viewership habits across the globe and television is facing serious competition from digital video services.

The Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India has teamed up with Médiamétrie (France), Numeris (Canada) and Video Research (Japan) to form the Global Alliance for the Measurement of Media Audiences (GAMMA), which will work on audience measurement initiatives including the development of common technical standards and operational processes.

The four founding nations together account for a population of more than 1.5 billion and advertising spend of $78 billion, about 15% of the worldwide total.

“Audience measurement across the world needs to constantly innovate to keep pace with emerging trends,” said BARC India CEO Partho Dasgupta. “We at BARC India have always been open to learning from our global counterparts, and this international alliance offers a tremendous platform to not only learn from our peers but also contribute.”

GAMMA has appointed Brad Bedford, a veteran audience measurement executive, as its global managing director.

“There is an ever-increasing demand for cross device measurement internationally and the partnering of these audience measurement firms seeks to facilitate continued movement in that direction,” said Bedford. “I am honoured to represent this effort on a global scale. We are confident GAMMA will be a source of great knowledge sharing and continued learning for the industry.”

The need for a global alliance was felt owing to rapid advancements in technology that are re-shaping both distribution and consumption of content. These changes have a global impact given the nature of digital media.

GAMMA aims to leverage the collective knowledge and sector expertise of each member to advance audience measurement solutions worldwide. Through close cooperation, the participants intend to identify strategies and solutions that are more transparent and standardised.