TRP is another metric along with GRP which is widely used by advertisers and media planners to purchase ad space on the TV channels. Ad budgets are designed and planned on the basis of TRP. Channels that have high TRP shows running on them, command a higher price per ad from the advertisers. Companies also don’t shy away from paying high prices because they know TV is the place where they are gonna find their desired viewers. TRPs are useful because the target audience supposedly resonates better with the ads and may end up buying the products.

Just like GRP, TRP data is recorded and collected by the Broadcasters Audience Research Council or BARC, India. It collects the data of about 197 million households in India which have a TV set. The collection of such huge amounts of data makes BARC the largest TV viewership measurement body in the world. BARC uses a sample of 40000 households with TV sets to project the data of the whole country. BARC makes sure that its sample is representative of the whole population. A Rigorous scientific and statistical approach is used to collect and process the data.

 To calculate the TRP, first, the GRP numbers are obtained.

GRP = Ad Frequency x Percent of Audience Reached

TRP = GRP x (Target Audience/Total Audience)

For instance, let’s say that there are 80 million TV-watching households in a country. Out of these households, 24 million households watch a popular show like “Super Dancer”. If we choose to air our ad 5 times during the commercial breaks in the show, our GRP comes out to be 150 (30% x 5).

Let us further assume that our target audience is a female between the age of 18 and 30. We know from the BARC data that among the 24 million households that watch Super Dancer, 25% of viewers are females between the age of 18 and 30. When we multiply this ratio with the GRP obtained, we get the results as TRP that is equal to 37.5. This means that the ad was shown 5 times to 25% of our target audience.

If a company divides its segments on the basis of psychographic and behavioral traits, then it is more likely that the target audience will better interact and resonate with the ad. But if our segments are divided on the basis of traits such as demography and geography then the company may be taking a bigger risk than it needs to take. Metrics like TRP and GRP only tells us about the quantity of the people reached but not whether our ad was actually seen or not. After all this trouble of creating an ad, designing a media campaign, and airing the ad on TV, if the viewer is not available to see the ad or is doing something else during the ad. Then it’s money down the drain.

We can say that TRP is a very important metric used to design the media campaign. But it is not foolproof and a sure shot way to get success via your TV ads.