Chrome Data Analytics and Media

Overview

Chrome Data Analytics and Media, widely known in the industry as Chrome DM, is a Noida-based primary research and data analytics company that specialises in measuring how television channels actually reach viewers across India. Founded in 2008, the company built its reputation as a broadcast distribution audit and monitoring specialist at a time when India's cable television market was large, fragmented and largely unorganised. Instead of relying on samples or on claims made by distribution intermediaries, Chrome DM set out to verify, town by town and headend by headend, whether a channel was genuinely available to households, on which platform, and at what position in the channel line-up.

That founding idea — independent, ground-level verification of television distribution — remains the core of the business. Around it, Chrome DM has grown into a broader technology-driven market research firm whose work spans broadcast and media services, brand audits, consumer research and digital audience measurement. The company describes its infrastructure as being shared across its broadcasting and media services and its brand audits division, and it positions itself as India's largest primary research and data analytics company in its segment, as well as the country's only distribution audit specialist consolidating connectivity reporting across analogue, digital cable and direct-to-home (DTH) delivery.

History and Founding

Chrome Data Analytics and Media was founded in December 2008. Its founder's motivation, recounted in industry coverage of the company's early years, came from direct experience of running a television channel: disputes between a channel's distribution and marketing teams over where the channel was actually being carried could not be settled because no external, unbiased audit company existed to validate either side's claims. Chrome DM was created to fill that gap, beginning with Chrome Track, a television distribution monitoring system designed to let broadcasters and agencies gauge ground realities for themselves.

The timing mattered. India was moving toward phased cable digitisation, and questions about which channels were visible in which towns — especially smaller LC1 towns that conventional measurement largely ignored — became commercially critical. Chrome responded with products aimed precisely at those blind spots, including Chrome LC1, described as the only connectivity report for LC1 towns, and Chrome NE, a service covering cities across the North-East. From an initial focus on distribution monitoring, the firm's range expanded steadily over the following decade into ratings support, piracy tracking, live monitoring, brand audits and, later, connected TV and digital measurement.

Leadership

Chrome DM was founded by Pankaj Krishna, who serves as Founder and Chief Executive Officer. According to the company's own leadership profiles, Krishna has more than three decades of experience in the media industry, having learned the business at organisations including STAR, the India Today Group and National Geographic, and having risen to become Business Head of UTV India before starting his entrepreneurial journey in 2008. He holds a B.Sc. (Honours) in Mathematics from the University of Delhi and has completed an Executive Education Programme at Harvard Business School.

The wider leadership team profiled by the company includes Mona Jain as Chief Growth Officer, a media and communications veteran whose background spans advertising agencies, global brands and broadcasting, including work associated with the launch of well-known consumer brands and television channels; Sreehari Parameshwaran, Associate Vice President for Broadcast and Media Solutions, whose earlier career included media planning and buying roles at agencies such as Ogilvy, GroupM and Havas Media; Riya Maity, Business Head of Chrome Digital, who joined the company in 2013; and Vikram Gerald, Vice President for Digital Initiatives, who previously headed the company's Network Operations Centre overseeing its field force and call-centre operations.

Broadcast Distribution Audit and Monitoring Services

The heart of Chrome DM's offering is its suite of proprietary distribution tools for traditional media. Its product line has included Track 2.0, the successor to the original Chrome Track monitoring system; Interconnexion, a platform launched to map the relationships between parent headends operated by multi-system operators (MSOs) such as Den, Hathway and Siti Cable and the smaller local cable operators who take feeds from them, so that broadcasters can identify unique feeds and track the source of fluctuations; and the Dual LCN Report and Landing Page Report, which track channel positions and landing-page placement — details that directly affect a channel's discoverability by viewers.

Other tools in the traditional media portfolio include Ratings Plus, the Chrome Plus Language Feed, Piracy Track for detecting unauthorised carriage, Live Monitoring, DFR, SES, Break Strategy, DPi and DRR, along with Chrome Live. Taken together, these products are designed to answer practical questions for channel owners: Is my channel switched on in this market? Where does it sit in the electronic programme guide? Has it been moved, dropped or pirated? Industry coverage has noted that Chrome DM's distribution tools have been used daily by large numbers of channels — figures cited over the years range from over 100 channels to more than 232 channels — reflecting how routine distribution verification became for Indian broadcasters during and after digitisation.

Brand Audits and Consumer Research

Beyond television, Chrome DM operates a brand audits and research division that applies the same field-verification model to retail and consumer markets. Its listed products in this area include Retail Track, Cine Track, a Mystery Shopper Program, OOH Track for out-of-home media, 10K, Brand Track, and focus group discussions and surveys conducted through its large respondent network. BrandPulse, described by the company as a global research company specialising in audits, surveys and visual merchandising, sits within this part of the business and has undertaken large audit projects for automotive clients, including compliance and sales-and-service hygiene audits.

This dual structure — media measurement on one side and brand and retail audits on the other — explains the scale of the company's field operation. The same on-ground network that checks cable headends can also audit retail presence, making Chrome DM a general-purpose primary research contractor for clients who need verified information from thousands of locations rather than desk-based estimates.

New Media, Digital and Connected TV Measurement

As viewing has shifted toward streaming, Chrome DM has extended its measurement work into digital media. Its new media offerings include COTT, its connected TV and OTT measurement product, COTT for Business, Chrome Digital Track, Talkies and digital marketing services. The company states that it has been measuring television distribution and consumption intelligence since 2008 and digital audience behaviour since 2021, working with broadcasters, OTT platforms and digital media companies across genres.

This digital push became publicly prominent when Chrome DM proposed a unified audience measurement framework to India's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. In its submission, the company called for authorised measurement agencies to be given API access by OTT platforms, connected TV platforms and mobile service providers, arguing that combining these data sources could produce a unified ratings system measuring audience behaviour across television and digital platforms in real time. It showcased its live COTT News Track dashboard, which it said can track consumption across connected TVs, mobile devices, native applications, third-party apps and browsers, with metrics such as live views, peak views, average views, cumulative views and trending news keywords. The proposal positioned Chrome DM as a would-be participant in any future cross-platform measurement currency for India, alongside the established television ratings system.

Headquarters, Offices and On-Ground Infrastructure

Chrome DM is headquartered in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, with its New Delhi-area offices listed at Sector 27 and at the World Trade Towers in Sector 16, Noida. The company also lists offices in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Raipur, reflecting a model in which regional teams support a much larger travelling field force.

The scale of that infrastructure is central to the company's claims. As of June 2024, Chrome DM reported a network of over 650 feet on the street, 450 tele-executives and some 3.6 lakh respondents speaking more than 22 languages, gathering data from 5,817 towns, with a presence across more than 5,99,623 villages — giving it reach deep into rural India. Earlier company factsheets described a team of more than 1,250 people in total and a panel and parallel-homes base of over 34,000 households, covering thousands of towns and six lakh villages. These figures include on-roll employees, contractual staff and third-party outsourcing, as the company itself notes.

Clients and Industry Role

Chrome DM says it has served more than 400 clients over its history. Organisations it names as having used its research and advisory services include Dabur, Gionee, Lava, Sony, Samsung, Star India, Zee, the Times Group, Future Group, Mercedes, Cafe Coffee Day, Soulflower, the Government of Rajasthan, the BJP, the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation and the Bureau of Energy Efficiency — a mix that spans broadcasters, advertisers, consumer brands, political and government clients. Testimonials published by the company from executives at networks and agencies describe the practical value placed on its data for solving distribution problems quickly and checking ground realities before committing advertising or carriage decisions.

Within the Indian news and media ecosystem, Chrome DM's importance lies less in publishing content than in supplying the verification layer underneath the television business. News broadcasters in particular depend on distribution data to negotiate carriage, plan language feeds and launches, and confirm that their channels remain visible in the markets where news consumption — and advertising value — is concentrated.

Certifications and Recognition

The company publicises a set of quality and process credentials intended to reassure clients about the integrity of its data collection. These include certification by Bureau Veritas, data collection processes audited by EY, ISO 27001:2022 certification for information security management systems and ISO 9001:2015 certification for quality management systems. Chrome DM also states that it is empanelled with the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) and with GroupM, and describes itself as a full corporate member of the market research industry body — credentials that matter in a business where the product is trust in numbers that clients cannot easily check themselves.

How to Access and Use Chrome DM

Chrome DM's products are business-to-business services rather than public reports: broadcasters, agencies, brands and institutions subscribe to its tools and dashboards, or commission audits, surveys and research projects, and receive reporting through its platforms and account teams. Prospective clients can reach the company through its website, chromedm.com, which lists its product portfolio across traditional media, brand audits and new media, along with contact details for its Noida headquarters and its Mumbai, Bengaluru and Raipur offices. For news organisations and media buyers, the practical route in is through the Broadcast and Media Solutions vertical for distribution and ratings products, or through Chrome Digital for connected TV and OTT measurement.