Partho Dasgupta Explores the Future of Television Measurement in a Multi-Screen Digital Era

The science of measuring what people watch has become fiendishly complex, as viewers scatter across smartphones, tablets, laptops, smart TVs, and traditional television sets, often simultaneously.


India's television measurement industry, built on decades of household panel data and set-top box analytics, now grapples with an audience that refuses to sit still. A viewer might start a show on their phone during the morning commute, continue on a laptop at lunch, and finish on their living room television in the evening. Traditional measurement systems, designed for linear broadcasting, struggle to track this fluid, cross-device behavior.

The stakes are enormous. Advertisers spend over ₹35,000 crore annually on television advertising in India, decisions largely driven by viewership data. If measurement systems cannot accurately capture multi-screen consumption, billions in ad spending could be misallocated. Broadcasters, already under pressure from streaming platforms, risk losing revenue if their actual reach goes uncounted.

Current measurement approaches remain fragmented. Television viewership is measured through one system, digital streaming through another, and mobile consumption through yet another. These siloed methodologies make it nearly impossible to understand true audience size, frequency, or the effectiveness of cross-platform campaigns. Advertisers demand unified metrics, but the technical and privacy challenges are formidable.

Data privacy regulations add layers of complexity. Europe's GDPR and India's emerging digital privacy framework restrict how viewer behavior can be tracked across devices. Cookie-based tracking, long the standard for digital measurement, faces extinction. Measuring viewership without invading privacy requires innovative approaches like device fingerprinting, probabilistic matching, and privacy-preserving computation.

The rise of connected TVs offers partial solutions but creates new puzzles. Smart TVs can report viewing data directly to measurement firms, providing granular insights into what's watched and when. However, multiple family members often share a single device, making individual-level measurement problematic. How do you differentiate between a teenager watching gaming content and their parent watching news on the same television?

Partho Dasgupta, who led BARC India in establishing the world's largest television measurement system, argues the industry needs fundamental reimagining rather than incremental fixes. "The question isn't how to retrofit old measurement models to new viewing habits, but whether we need entirely new currencies for audience valuation," he observes. "Attention metrics, engagement depth, and outcome-based measurement may matter more than simple eyeballs in a world where viewers control what, when, and how they watch."

The path forward likely involves collaboration between broadcasters, streaming platforms, telecom operators, and device manufacturers to create industry-wide measurement standards. Without collective action, India risks fragmented data ecosystems where no single source of truth exists, undermining advertiser confidence and distorting content investment decisions. How quickly the industry can adapt will determine whether Indian media maintains its growth trajectory or descends into measurement chaos.

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