TAM to install 5,500 new peoplemeters in Class I towns

TAM Media Research has decided to double its existing 4,800 peoplemeters to 10,300. The development is significant for broadcasters and media planners, who will see a virtual doubling of sample homes in the TAM system.

TAM viewership data currently represents Class I towns (towns with population more than 100,000) in India. The new peoplemeters will be also installed in the Class I towns. Currently, the 4,800 peoplemeters are installed across 4,555 homes.

This apart, according to senior TAM executives, the agency is parallelly working on providing data from the semi-urban and rural markets. LV Krishnan, CEO, TAM Media Research, says, “Over and above the expansion in the current panel, our plans to start the Elite TAM service are on track.” The Elite Tam service is aimed at capturing the television viewing habits of SEC A + and SEC A, or the top-end of the market. The elite panel, and the semi-urban and rural panel will be launched by 2005-end.

TAM executives say that the entire process of working out the costs, the time-line of installations and other allied aspects will take another three to four weeks.

TAM's decision is in response to the latest National Readership Survey (NRS) 2005 findings that showed a substantial increase in the television and satellite universe numbers.

According to a TAM release, soon after NRS 2005 was released in June, the research agency had circulated a preliminary note within the industry informing clients that there would be changes in the agency's television panel. The changes are expected to benefit the industry, including broadcasters, advertisers and media planners.

For the record, TAM, for its TV Establishment Survey, uses NRS data because of its massive sample size. Krishnan says, “TAM is fully geared to meet the new requirements. We have collected feedbacks from different user groups about segments critical to them and this has also been factored in the new expansion plan.”

“We all know that our TV environment has been changing on three fronts – the universe with more urban population, the TV-universe with more homes having TV sets and the market with more number of TV channels. Now, NRS-2005 has captured these changes in our TV universe which in turn will get reflected in the TAM Panel as well,” he adds.

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