BARC India Newsletter Relative Error

SOLVING THE PUZZLE!
Hello,
Welcome to 2015!
We take this opportunity to thank all our Stakeholders, Vendors,

Partners and Associates for helping us reach milestones in the journey
we have embarked upon together.
Thanks to all Broadcasters for their faith and encouragement with their
investment in the installation of Watermarking Embedders. With
upwards of 275 Channels having ordered for Embedders, all major
networks in each region and across genres are on-board. This shows
their conviction in participation to create history with the World’s
largest television audience measurement system.
Thanks to Advertisers and Media Agencies who have been most
welcoming on our ‘Reach-Out meetings’ post the BARC India
Roadshows. Their feedback on how and what’s of data usage has
helped us sharpen the front-end User interface into a first class User
experience. As we continue to connect individually with as many as we
can, we are listening to feedback and insights for further development.
Playout monitoring facilities are in action too and meta-tagging of
content across Watermarked Channels is in full throttle in Mumbai and
Bangalore. It is indeed another brick in the wall…as tweeted below by
Mr. Punit Goenka, Chairman BARC India.
We have tested the end to end integration of the system and it is

working perfectly fine. The technology handshakes are in place and
Ratings are being generated from the BARC system now. The same was
also tweeted by us recently.
It’s our endeavor to interact, engage and share with our stakeholders -
key developments and initiatives as we continue to unravel the puzzle
of TV audience measurement system in India.
We are sharing few learnings and insights on the importance of
Relative Errors and Confidence Levels in audience measurement for
new beginnings this New Year…
BARC India and the importance of Relative Error
Over the past few months, BARC India has highlighted its commitment
to data robustness and has spoken about lower Relative Errors at high
Confidence Levels. We have repeatedly highlighted that Relative Errors
are an important factor to be considered whenever we evaluate the
ratings data, or read any research report, for that matter.
Let us explain these terms and the impact these have in reading of any
research data.
Relative Error and its Impact on Research Data

It is not possible to sample every individual (except perhaps, a
Census). Hence, sample surveys are undertaken. Statistics offers
scientific methods to estimate phenomena across entire populations by
studying samples. Any sample survey suffers inherently from various
errors. Owing to these, Statistics never talk about an average (or
mean) without talking simultaneously about a measure of dispersion,
usually the standard deviation.
A researcher has to balance between demands of greater accuracy and

constraints of finite resources. Statisticians therefore work with
defined ‘Confidence Intervals’ and ‘Sampling Errors’. One of these
sampling errors is the ‘Relative Error’, or the deviation (in percentage)
of the observed value from the actual (expected) value.
Confidence Level (or Confidence Interval)

Confidence Level is generally defined as a percentage or a decimal
figure less than 1. So, if a researcher says that the Confidence Interval
is 90%, what he means is that 90% of the samples of the same size
taken from the same population will produce results within a defined
range.
Relative Error
Let’s explain it simply with the example of a TV programme. A TV
ratings measurement system estimates that the programme has 1 TRP
with a standard deviation of 0.25. This means that the actual rating is
expected to lie between 1-0.25 and 1+0.25 or 0.75 and 1.25. The
relative error is simply 0.25/1.0 or 25%.
A simplistic explanation that may antagonise a purist, but can be
explained simply in the following diagram.
In other words, it is important for a research to ensure least possible

Relative Error at the highest possible Confidence Level, else it risks
generating data with such wide variance that it becomes meaningless!
Just imagine saying that a programme has 1 TRP at the above Relative
Errors. What you’re really saying is that there is a two-thirds possibility
that the TRP is between 0.5 and 1.5 and a one-third possibility that the
TRP could
be either lower than 0.5 or higher than 1.5! And even for this, you are
only 67% sure. If someone asks you what is the range of possibilities for
which you are 90% sure?
Factors affecting Relative Error

The most important factor that affects Relative Error is Sample Size.
Relative Error increases in geometric magnitude as sample size
decreases, while it becomes independent of sample size beyond a
certain threshold.
Sampling is also relatively simpler when estimating a homogenous

population and more complex for heterogeneous population. It is
hence extremely important to have a significantly large sample size,
especially when calculating estimates for large heterogeneous
universe.
How BARC India intends to handle issues related to sample size to

ensure robustness of data
Let us consider a hypothetical scenario –
A planner wishes to evaluate programme viewership for the following
TG for a premium brand - Males, NCCS AB, 40+ in Delhi
Total Sample Size: 130
Approx. Sample Size for a programme with a rating of 1% viewers: 13
A sample size of 13 is way too low to do any meaningful evaluation.

Hence, BARC India would not encourage such evaluations.
To circumvent this issue, BARC India intends to aggregate the data

through one of the following means-
• Aggregate viewership data across two or more weeks
• Add more cities to the sample, aggregating geographically
• Instead of considering a particular individual programme or a
limited time, evaluate a daypart, thus aggregating by time bands
Each of the above methods would increase the sample size and would
allow the planner to make his decision based on robust relevant data.
The BARC India Technical Committee is evaluating options of either
hardcoding the aggregations in the pre-publishing stage itself, or
allowing the planner to decide the aggregation based on his / her
requirements. This decision would be taken only after seeing the data
for all panel homes and assessing the pros and cons of each method.
We are also planning to conduct another round of roadshows in early

Feb’15 on the GUI(User Interface) and you shall hear from us soon.
Hope you enjoyed reading these insights as much as we liked sharing

them for you.
So, here’s to insightful new beginnings in 2015.
Regards,
TEAM BARC India.

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SOLVING THE PUZZLE!

We take this opportunity to thank all our Stakeholders, Vendors,

We have tested the end to end integration of the system and it is

BARC India and the importance of Relative Error

Relative Error and its Impact on Research Data

A researcher has to balance between demands of greater accuracy and

Confidence Level (or Confidence Interval)

In other words, it is important for a research to ensure least possible

Factors affecting Relative Error

Sampling is also relatively simpler when estimating a homogenous

How BARC India intends to handle issues related to sample size to

A sample size of 13 is way too low to do any meaningful evaluation.

To circumvent this issue, BARC India intends to aggregate the data

We are also planning to conduct another round of roadshows in early

Hope you enjoyed reading these insights as much as we liked sharing

So, here’s to insightful new beginnings in 2015.

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