BARC Suspended Ratings of Lowbrow Entertainment Channels, Not News

BARC did a huge disservice to the job function of news this year – which was primarily and only to entertain.

I worked for a couple of years with a movie studio. Part of my job was digital marketing of the films the studio produced and financed.

Two things were crucial in the successful digital marketing campaign of any film – Twitter trends and YouTube views for the film’s assets. ‘Assets’ was the term used to describe the songs and the trailer of the film – essentially pre-release promotional assets. Initially, if your hashtag trended and your trailer got a million views – it was a job well done.

But then, the instant gratification made you want more – the goal post of digital validation kept shifting – it was no longer important that you trended or you got a million views, other burning factors came into play.