- Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh on Thursday, October 8 claimed to have busted a racket that involved private television channels manipulating their Television Rating Points, or TRP.
- The police action was initiated on a complaint from Hansa, the firm contracted by Broadcast Audience Research Council, or BARC, to install audience measurement meters installed in selected households to track television channels that are being watched by people.
Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh on Thursday, October 8 claimed to have busted a racket that involved private television channels manipulating their Television Rating Points, or TRP. One of the three channels is Republic TV, the police commissioner said. The other two are local Mumbai channels.
Channels bribed households:
According to the Mumbai Police, Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) engaged a firm called Hansa to install barometers in households of consumers to record their viewing, based on which TRPs are calculated. Advertising rates for particular channels are determined as per their TRPs.
The police action was initiated on a complaint from Hansa, the firm contracted by Broadcast Audience Research Council, or BARC, to install audience measurement meters installed in selected households to track television channels that are being watched by people. Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh said about 30,000 such meters had been installed across the country; 2,000 in Mumbai.
Information about the households where the meters are installed is treated as confidential so that the data isn’t manipulated. But this information was leaked, police said.
Singh also asserted that Mumbai police found that a set of households where these meters were installed were paid money to tune to a particular channel. In one case, Mumbai’s top police officer said, investigators found that a household comprising people who were not literate always had an English news channel switched on.
The households were paid about Rs 400-500 every month, the police commissioner said.
Singh said owners of two local channels had been arrested along with an ex-employee of Hansa suspected of leaking the information about meters installed to the television channels.
Republic TV is next on the police’s radar. Officials of the news channels will be summoned either today or tomorrow, Singh said. “No one involved will be spared,” the senior police officer said, recalling that they earlier believed that some news channels carried out propaganda stories to boost their TRP. Now it appears they manipulate audience data too, he said.
Singh said a small manipulation of the audience data could lead to an increase in advertising revenue running into crores of rupees.
“As you are aware, a small manipulation of the TRP translates into advertising revenue running into hundreds of crores… “We will examine bank accounts of the television channels. We will examine the funds received from advertisers. And if this is funds from proceeds of crime, action can be initiated to seize the money or freeze the account,” Singh said.
In a statement issued soon after, Republic TV’s editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami said it was an attempt to get back at the channel for its coverage of the Maharashtra government.
Republic Media Network's Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami's statement pic.twitter.com/axhbJZ47eA
— Republic (@republic) October 8, 2020
Arnab Goswami’s statement put out on the channel’s Twitter handle said Singh had “made false allegations against Republic TV because we have questioned him in the Sushant Singh Rajput case investigation. Republic TV will file a criminal defamation case against Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh. There is not a single BARC report that mentions Republic TV. The people of India know the truth”.
“Mr. Param Bir Singh’s investigation in the Sushant Singh Rajput case is under a cloud and this is a desperate measure because of Republic tV’s reportage on Palghar, the Sushant Singh Rajput case or any other case. This kind of targeting only strengthens the resolve of everyone at Republic TV to push for the truth even harder,” Goswami said, threatening to sue the police commissioner.
“Param Bir Singh stands completely exposed today since BARC has not mentioned Republic in any single complaint,” the statement said.
