By Our Staff
There is more reason to be delighted to publish this bit of info. It’s possibly the first communique we’ve received from BARC India in over a year. Phew!
Yes, you read it right: in over a year.
But the news is of greater interest because the general buzz around the industry is that all is not too well at the audience measurement firm. In fact there are some very strong rumours of a certain section of broadcasters considering a rival measurement body. But of course running a measurement body needs loads of money and must have the blessings of the entire ecosystem, including advertisers and advertising agencies.
Without further digression, here’s the news of the day: Broadcast Audience Research Council India (BARC), the world’s largest television audience measurement body (the communique claims… we would also add: possibly the world’s most controversy-ridden measurement body), has announced the appointment of Dolly Jha as its Chief of Product & Research. Jha has experience of close to three decades across Kantar, ITC Foods and Nielsen, where she spent the last 13-odd years.
On her appointment, Jha said: “I am excited to join BARC India as the Chief of Product & Research. BARC today runs the largest Audience Measurement system in the world. With all the experience behind me, I am looking forward to contributing to BARC by evolving the measurement further to meet the growing needs of stakeholders.”
Welcoming Jha, Nakul Chopra, CEO, BARC India said in the communique, “It is indeed wonderful that Dolly will join the BARC Leadership Team. As the Chief of Product & Research – she will expectedly bring immense value to our eco-system, both from the perspective of working back from our output, to improve input quality and, over time in helping build value added services that will benefit all our subscribers. Both these vital functions are new capabilities that we seek to add to BARC – given her vast experience, I cannot think of a leader more suited to this role. In her stint at Nielsen, Dolly has already deep exposure and understanding of what BARC does – I am confident that this will augur for an extremely fulfilling partnership. I warmly welcome her and look forward to working closely with her.”