Television Rating Points (TRPs)

These points were introduced in 1986 to assess the viewership of DD programmes by IMRB. The TRP survey is conducted in 9 major cities of India. The data are collected on a weekly basis. The panel consists of 3214 adult members. Each panel member records the viewership of different TV programmes in the diary specially given to him. The data is then analysed. The panel has two groups: Primary audience of adults from TV owning household and Secondary audience of adults from non-TV owning households but who watch TV atleast once a week. Programme’s rating point is the percentage of panel members who viewed those programmes. One TRP is equal to one percent of TV audience. To illustrate, if Ramayana gets 75 TRPs it means 75% panel members watched Ramayana during that week. TRP Weekly Reports provide data on the weekly viewership citywise for different programmes. The data are broken down for both the primary audience and the total audience (primary audience plus secondary audience). TRP Monthly Reports give data of frequency of viewing, overlapping of viewership amongst programmes, cumulative reach for different episodes of the same programme. They also give viewer’s profit. TRP reports are a good help for media planners. DD has started publishing weekly TRPs of its programmes. Feedback on viewership data is still not adequate. TRP is not representative enough. TV meters are expected to appear.