MUMBAI: The first step towards making the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) operational has been taken with the formation of the television audience measurement body‘s technical committee.

IPG Mediabrands India CEO Shashi Sinha has been appointed as the chairman of the technical committee of BARC.

BARC, constituted in July 2010 under the Companies Act, aims to set up a transparent and credible television audience measurement system in India. BARC would be the umbrella body and television audience measurement service providers like TAM Media Research, a joint venture of Nielsen and Kantar, will function under it for the purpose of providing ratings.

India TV strategist Paritosh Joshi and Hindustan Unilever head of CMI South Smita Bhosale are members of the committee.

Sinha said, "Setting up of the technical committee is very important for the pushing of BARC but the board (of BARC) is supreme. The Committee will make all the recommendations in terms of how sampling and other technical things should be done. So it will be a recommendation body but the final decision will be taken by BARC board."

BARC is headed by Zeel CEO Punit Goenka as chairman. The board includes six broadcasters, two advertisers - HUL executive director home and personal care Hemant Bakshi and ex-P&G India chairman and managing director Bharat Patel - and two agency executives - GroupM South Asia CEO Vikram Sakhuja and RK Swamy BBDO chairman and MD Sunder K Swamy.

BARC is 60 per cent owned by the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) and 20 per cent each by the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and the Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA).