TRP MANIPULATION CASE

This Thursday several television news channels were accused of tampering with television rating points (TRPs) by the Mumbai Police. The Mumbai police claimed to have busted a Television Rating Points manipulation scam after a complaint was filled by TV viewership measurement agency Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC).

What is TRP?

Television Rating Points is a tool to evaluate which television programmes of which channel is viewed the most but the TRP can also be used to know how many people, from which socio-economic categories, watched which channels for how much time during a particular period.

Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh said in their investigation that republic TV and two other local Mumbai channels were found guilty of manipulating the said data. Under which the two channel owners were arrested but no arrest has been made to republic TV as the investigation is still in process.

Chief financial officer (CFO) of Republic TV, Shiva Sundaram, the founder, chairman and managing director of Madison World, Sam Balsara, and the CEO of IPG Mediabrands, Shashi Sinha were called by the police for questioning in the case on Friday.

Upon investigation two former executive for Hansa Research which is a contractor of BARC were founded to take part in misappropriating the TRP. Mumbai police searched their homes and more than 20 lakhs were recovered.

The arrested former executive revealed that they were paid by certain channels to distribute Rs 400 to Rs 500 for per month to households for keeping their channels on throughout the day. These households consist of people that are not even familiar to English.

Republic tv also issued a statement accusing Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh of false allegations as they were the one who questioned him in Sushant Rajput case.

BY - PRATHAM