Right. So you are ready to buy a plan. You have looked at channel share, TVRs, GRPs and what not. But, have you looked at a critical audience viewership index- Ad break TVRs. And further, figured out where exactly should your spot run in a break.

To answer the questions, we looked at two sets of data for top 5 programmes on key Hindi satellite channels- Star Plus, Zee and Sony. Average Programme TVRs & Ad Break TVRs were calculated for all episodes of top 5 programme, run during last 6 weeks (Week 50-Week 03). The arithmetic difference between average Programme TVRs and average Break TVRs reflect the loss of audience, due to ad break.

Before we begin reporting, it is only fair to expect a drop. After all, audience surf across a set of channels.

The drop, as per our analysis, is close to 13%. That means that typically the Break TVR is 13% lower than the programme TVR. This is, of course, a generalization. From the table below, please note the variation in the 'Average Difference' column. The data range is 22% to 7%. Note the relative stability in average Difference for programmes on Star Plus. This could be a result of fairly regulated inventory management, where too much clutter is avoided.

What needs to be kept in mind is that this analysis is restricted to 'Soaps' genre only, and it would be interesting to see what the results are for other important genres like Cricket and Events.

%age drop in Break TVR compared to Average Programme TVRs- Top 5 Programme

Channel	Programme	Avg Prog TVR	Avg Break TVR	Avg Difference
Sony	AAHAT	2.18	1.99	-9%
Sony	C.I.D.	7.67	6.82	-11%
Sony	KKUSUM	8.47	6.58	-22%
Sony	KUTUMB	6.78	5.99	-12%
STPL	KAAHIN KISSII ROZ	9.67	9.04	-7%
STPL	KAHAANI GHAR GHAR KI	19.64	16.98	-13%
STPL	KASAUTII ZINDAGII KAY	10.59	9.26	-13%
STPL	KAUN BANEGA CROREPATI	5.83	5.20	-12%
STPL	KYUNKI SAAS BHI KABHI B	21.40	18.83	-12%
Zee	AMANAT	3.93	3.06	-21%
Zee	CHOTI MAA...EK ANO.BAND	2.18	2.03	-8%
Zee	KOHI APNA SA	4.48	3.94	-12%
Zee	KOSHISH...EK AASHAA	4.67	4.20	-10%
Zee	MEHNDI TERE NAAM KI	4.68	4.07	-12%

Data Source: TAM / TG: M/F, 15-44 Yrs, ABC, C&S Homes
Period: Week 50-03

As noted above, the average drop of close 13% is not high. And this should give some comfort to clients and buyers. The high variance on a few programmes could be a function of clutter or programming format, which needs to be factored in while buying.

Spot Position: Which is your pick
First Spot; Last Spot; Anywhere… Looking at Spot Position data presented us with a problem. While an average (across several episodes) is ideal, one can't average the Spot TVR data across multiple episodes of a programme since duration of first spot in episode one, is likely to be different from duration of first spot in another episode. Since TVRs are time-weighted estimates, it is incorrect to apply arithmetic average to TVRs of different time durations.

That left us with not-such-a-precise approach to look at this data. We looked thru a lot of data and came with a few breaks that closely reflect the total set. See chart below.

One would expect that the First and Last spot in a break are the best times to catch the audience, but the numbers reveal a much larger skew towards the last break. Start of the break TVRs though higher than the middle portions are still much lesser than the last spot TVRs. This is the case with most top programmes indicating that audience come back just before the programme begins.

Hope this answers a few questions and puts another variable in your already long list of buying parameters!