If you are a regular viewer of news channels on Television you probably would have thought about why they show the content with so much masala added to it. Well, there can be multiple reasons to that and one of them is the TRP (Television Rating Point)they get by showing such content. So, why does TRP matter so much to the media? To know this firstly we should know what TRP is and how it is measured.
What is TRP?
TRP is the percentage of a particular population consuming a medium at a particular time. In easy language, TRP is a tool used to know about the popularity of a programme. It is an index which gives us clarity about what audience likes.
How is TRP measured?
TRP is measured by attaching Peoplemeters on the TV sets of a few thousand viewers to keep the track of what they watch and when. TAM Media Research and BARC (Broadcast Audience Research Council ) are two organisations responsible for measuring TRPs. These research branches also monitor the advertising expenditure of different channels.
Why is TRP important for news channels?
The TRPs are important to the channels because more TRPs attract more advertisements, time slots that have the higher number of viewers are sold at a higher price which leads to higher revenues. Before criticising news channels for showing irrelevant topics we should consider our fault also which has resulted in making media companies do that.
Let us take an example of a normal report and what it takes to cover a single story that we see on news channels. Suppose, a reporter is in Delhi and he has to reach Mumbai for covering a breaking news. It will cost around Rs 10,000 for an emergency booking as travel expenses of both sides. If he spends 1 day in Mumbai it will cost him around Rs 500 for having food. Add the Rs. 3000 for Taxi that he will use during the day for reaching different places. You can see how much a single report costs. For channel distribution companies have to pay around Rs. 30-35 crores annually to reach our homes.
An average user only pays Rs 2 for a news channel. Can you expect the number of news reports we see on these channels just for Rs 2? Well, for making up for the expenses these channels need advertisers and advertisers just care about the number of views a channel gets. Indian audience likes to know about celebrities and their lives, that’s why channels focus so much on them. In short, we are responsible for the content we see on these channels as the content makers only provide the things we demand from them.
The scenario is also similar in the content we see on the internet. Pages on social media and websites post the things their audience likes to read and share. By this, they get more views and earn more money. It is not that the content creators don’t want to post unique and good things but when they don’t get the response, it makes them follow the regular path of making the audience happy by posting the things they read more.
So, next time if you see something that you don’t like, you have all the rights to change the channel and provide TRP to the content that you think should be given more importance. This is only a point of view that we wanted to share with our audience and if you want to say something about this do let us know in comments because your views do matter a lot.
