In his 25-year career span, Mumbai based Media Reach Research vice president Kapil Anand has worked with leading research agencies such as Pathfinders, MBA (Gallop), AC Nielsen, amongst others.

Since nearly one and half years, the firm has been providing Indian ad agencies with its OTS Update data - which Media Reach has pitched as a true picture of the number of C&S homes (in urban and rural India) receiving a particular channel. The company recently launched the Peri Urban study that it says offers agencies a peep into the behaviour of cable homes located in and around larger towns and cities.

Media Reach Research operates through five regional offices and a network of representatives for collecting data from hundreds of towns and villages. Anand has plans to extend his network to smaller towns and villages in order to cover the entire country.

Anand spoke to indiantelevision.com's Ashwin Kotian. Excerpts:

How important is availability of a channel in any household?
All the C&S broadcasters talk of connectivity in 40 million homes but the ground reality seems to be something very different. Normally, one views what one prefers but only if it is available. But, preferences are not about TRPs. Therefore, media planners and buyers must consider reach first and then viewership - something similar to what they do in the case of print media.

In fact, amongst the 40 million C&S homes, 13 million homes are in rural areas and a sizeable number of the urban C&S households are in towns with less than 1 lakh (100,000) population.

The fact of the matter is that all C&S homes cannot receive all the channels. Channel availability depends on two factors - the frequency band on which it is made available and the type of TV set that receives them.

Hence, it becomes inevitable to know on which frequency a particular channel has been placed in order to determine the reach of that channel. Moreover, India has a huge penetration of B&W TV sets. The number of B&W sets may not be growing but Indians do have a penchant for conducting repairs and prolonging the use of such outdated sets. Also, as tastes evolve, the older models filter down to lower socio economic classes (SECs).

However, it is left to the media planner or buyer to understand the economics of distribution. Merely picking up a programme with maximum TRPs or viewership doesn't help. Many a times, the channel isn't received by all the TV sets in the targeted area. The efforts in getting the product and brand in place; choosing the programme or channel are wasted if an important variable - namely the reach of the channel - isn't taken into account.

Clearly, there is a gap and more effort has to be made to understand cable infrastructure.

Do you mean to say that the television industry needs something like an Audit Bureau of Circulation to supplement the viewership data?
A simple analogy is the fact that studies such as NRS (National Readership Survey) and IRS (Indian Readership Survey) take audited circulation (ABC) into consideration and these studies try to arrive at some kind of a co-relation.

In the case of the television industry, there is no such measure or tool that determines reach (or circulation). Several media planners refer to NRS or IRS and combine it with TAM data. However, one must remember that NRS and IRS studies are conducted over a six month period and released after eight or nine months from the research launch date - but in the case of television, the loyalties shift on a weekly basis. Therefore, there is a need to get accurate data quickly.

Are you saying OTS can plug the gap?
OTS Update is the best way to ensure that the choice of channel selection can be maximised. It gives a true picture of C&S households receiving a particular channel. It also takes into account "channel receivability" effected by the various types of TV sets and the location of a channel on various frequencies.

Using the same format as that of the industrial research models, we have made an effort to go to the grass-root level (retail point of contact), which in this case is the cable control room.

OTS Update works on the premise that all C&S homes cannot receive all channels. Channel availability depends on the type of TV set and the frequency band on which the channel is delivered by the cable operator. Channels can be located on five different frequency bands.

For the last one-and-a-half years, Media Reach Research has been conducting channel availability studies in 300 (population of 100,000 plus) towns constituting 75 per cent of the urban C&S household. The result is a comprehensive report generated every month that gives the true picture of a channel's availability. Only OTS Update covers each and every control room. Thus, no area in the town is left uncovered. The study gives a definite picture of the channel's reach not only in the state but also in a particular city or town.

The OTS Update study started off by covering 300 towns. This has been increased to 735 towns (over 2,500 control rooms); and the data is available on an easy to browse format. The data is purely observational and available on a virtual census basis. We can also go beyond the 1 lakh plus towns just as NRS or IRS does.

Initially, over a three month period, we did an extensive listing exercise and covered each and every control room in the universe defined by us. Now, we update our database on a regular basis and add new names. We didn't undertake sampling because it would become an exercise similar to TAM.

Give us some data on the findings?
As far as the C&S household scenario is concerned, there are 27 million C&S households in urban India.

Distribution of these households by town class is as follows:
Top 8 - 34 per cent; other cities - 11 per cent; 500,000-1 million towns - 9 per cent; 100,000-500,000 towns - 21 per cent; less than 100,000 towns - 25 per cent.

Type of TV sets in C&S households

A case study we conducted threw up a startling fact. In January 2002, Star Plus was placed in Mumbai as follows: 43 per cent on Prime Band; 18 per cent on Tunable band; 37 per cent on Mid/Hyper/UHF; 2 per cent not available. This resulted in an OTS (opportunity to see) of 75 per cent.