Foreign companies may soon be banned from providing TV audience measurement data in Russia.
According to Kommersant, Andrei Lugovoi, the deputy of the Liberal Democratic Party, introduced draft amendments to the law ‘On advertising’ and ‘On the media’ in the State Duma on Monday, June 6.
These would effectively prohibit all forms of foreign control of audience measurement, with the foreign ownership share of telemetry companies limited to 20%, unless otherwise approved by an international treaty of the Russian Federation.
If the amendments are adopted, it is expected they would come into effect on January 1, 2017.
TNS and its sister company Kantar Media have been active in Russia for nearly 20 years.
They currently provide the most extensive audience research data, using Peoplemeters recording viewing in over 5,000 households in cities with a population of over 100,000.