Broadcasters in a fix as weekly rating suspension disrupts Rs 40,000 crore ad market

MUMBAI: The suspension of weekly television ratings is set to disrupt media planning across India's Rs 40,000 crore TV advertising market, forcing advertisers to rely on historical audience data while giving established broadcasters a temporary advantage over rivals that have recently gained market share, industry executives said.

The disruption is also expected to accelerate the ongoing shift of some advertising spends from linear television to connected TV (CTV) and digital platforms, where audience measurement and campaign performance data remain available, they added.

This follows a directive from the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) asking the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), India's only television audience measurement body, to stop publishing weekly ratings until it complies with the Television Ratings Guidelines 2026.


According to an MIB official, BARC hasn’t yet complied with the requirements under the new framework. These include appointing at least 33% independent directors, introducing cross-screen measurement for linear TV and CTV, and excluding landing-page viewership from ratings. The guidelines also require BARC to expand its panel from the current 59,000 to 80,000 metered homes within nine months.

The guidelines, notified on March 27 and amended on May 8, require audience measurement agencies to register under the new framework.

Advertisers depend on BARC's weekly ratings to plan media spends and optimise campaigns, while broadcasters use them to demonstrate audience gains and attract advertising. In the absence of fresh data, media planners are expected to fall back on historical trends, benefiting incumbent market leaders while disadvantaging channels that have recently improved their performance.

The suspension comes at a time when television advertising is already under pressure from digital platforms. Advertisers, particularly FMCG companies, are increasingly adopting a "Total TV" strategy spanning pay TV, free-to-air television, and CTV to improve campaign measurement and reach.

BARC said in a notice accompanying its Week 25'26 preliminary report that it had been advised not to publish weekly ratings until it gets permission under the Television Ratings Policy 2026. Ratings for June 20-26, scheduled for release on Thursday, were withheld with immediate effect.

BARC's 10-year registration under the previous framework expired on July 27, 2025. The suspension marks the first industry wide television ratings blackout in more than a decade. The previous disruption occurred in 2015 during the transition from TAM Media Research to BARC as India's sole television audience measurement currency. TV news ratings, however, have been suspended twice following the 2020 TRP manipulation controversy and the Iran war this year.

"Marketing and media ecosystems are changing across the world and measurement is an important element in this complex compound,” said Partho Dasgupta, managing partner at Thoth Advisors and former CEO of BARC India. “Starting from sample size to including digital ratings, most of these have been pending for some time (as is the Establishment Survey), and logically, the government is insisting on implementing these. The blackout means that certain parts of the ecosystem will benefit in the data-dark period while some will lose badly.”

He added that the absence of independent audience measurement across the media and entertainment ecosystem reflects poorly on the industry as global markets move towards more deterministic and outcome-based measurement.

"Ratings blackout will hit advertisers hard because we rely on that data to plan our media investments,” said Parle Products CMO Mayank Shah. “We will have to depend on historical data for media planning, but that will only be useful for about a month. Secondly, we will rely on our sales teams to assess whether our campaigns are delivering results. Beyond that, we will have to go by our gut feeling. TV ratings help us track variations in channel performance and optimise our media plans accordingly.”

He said the blackout would temporarily favour large broadcasters with established viewership, while channels that had recently gained market share would struggle to monetise their improved performance.

"There could also be a shift in some advertising investments from linear TV to connected TV and digital, a trend that was already underway," said Shah.

BARC is promoted by the Indian Broadcasting and Digital Foundation, the Indian Society of Advertisers and the Advertising Agencies Association of India in a 60:20:20 shareholding structure. It currently measures television audiences through around 59,000 metered homes and is expanding both its panel and cross-platform measurement capabilities.