MUMBAI: The industry will have to wait longer to get to know how audiences watched television for the last nine weeks in a digitised environment. TAM Media Research will not release the data today following the request of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.

The decision to defer the data release was taken in concurrence with the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA).

TAM said in a statement that the delay is for a couple of days. The three industry bodies, however, will meet with the I&B Ministry to take a final call.

The News Broadcasters Association (NBA) particularly feels that the data of the news genre during these nine weeks should be kept dark.

“At the request of I&B Ministry, Government of India, and in concurrence with IBF, AAAI and ISA, we are delaying the data release to Thursday/Friday. The reason for doing so is that the Govt. of India has requested us to withhold release of news channels data by two or three days. The industry is meeting with the ministry to take a decision,” TAM said.

The fate of the data release will only be known after the I&B Ministry and the three industry bodies meet.