Mumbai, Aug. 3: The average age of people who watch MTV at five in the morning is 60.

More such eye-openers could be thrown up by a new television audience measurement system, the “first overnight and online” service in Asia. This could challenge the monopoly of TAM, which is the only rating of television programmes accepted generally by broadcasters, agencies and media-planners (only Zee is an exception) in India.

The new system, called aMap, seeks to introduce more detailed information on the TV watcher, and speed.

TAM, based on collecting data manually from its peoplemeters in about 4,500 houses in the country, offers data once a week.

aMap will offer it online to subscribers daily. It will collect data through a fully automated system every day between 2 am and 4 am with its central server making a call- using GSM technology to its peoplemeters in sample homes.

The information will be available online immediately to subscribers. So as soon as the subscriber steps into his office the next morning, he will probably remain unmoved by the knowledge that saas bahus still rule the roost.

But he may want to know in greater detail about the woman viewer’s choices. aMap, which has 256 variables to categorise viewers according to specifics of age, income, household properties and education, will help him.

The broadcaster could run a search and know what women between 25 and 35, who can speak English, who have a television but no AC and who have one child, were watching between 8.35 pm and 8.45 pm. Or what 60-year-olds were watching at five ’ clock.

The number of sample homes is 1,000 at the moment for aMap, but it will go up to 20,000 in 24 months, says Tapan Pal, CEO, Audience Measurement and Analytics (P) Ltd, the company that has launched aMap. The company is Indian, but the technology Swiss, licensed from Telecontrol AG, a Swiss company, and the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation.

If aMap works in India, it could revolutionise the way television viewing is looked at, says Pal. He adds that the industry response — the system has been installed on a trial basis at various broadcasters’ offices, agencies and media-planning houses — has been very good.

Two broadcasters attested to this. “It is a brilliant concept,” one broadcaster, who didn’t want to be named, said. “It is a good and robust tool, as we would have the data the next day,” said another.

But one said the current sample size is very small and it would not be of help. The other said the process of testing the veracity and stability of the data was still on.

There is an inherent loophole in the system. The aMap peoplemeter comes with a remote control device, which will indicate the age group of each viewer. A viewer in a sample household will be assigned a particular button in it — he or she will switch it on when watching a programme.

But would the audience always be so responsible? “It has been found out that people usually don’t lie on this,” says Raviratan Arora, managing director, Audience Measurement and Analytics (P) Ltd.

A critic of aMap asks a more basic question. “What if you get to know that 60-year-olds watch MTV most early in the morning? Or what 25-35 year-old women who speak English were exactly watching between 8.35 pm and 8.45 pm? What if you get the information the next morning? Would it change decision-making on ad-spends?” he demands.

aMap’s promoters think it would.