Arnab Goswami's Republic TV in a huge difficulty after Mumbai Police uncovered TRP fraud

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• Arnab Goswami's Republic TV in trouble after Mumbai Police exposes fake TRP scam

"The Nation Wants to Know"

Mumbai police on Thursday professed to have busted a Television Rating Points (TRP) control racket, including four people have been captured for this situation. 

Mumbai police official Param Bir Singh told columnists that Republic TV, a public TV news channel confronting fire over its assault on Mumbai police and Maharashtra government in the Sushant Singh Rajput death case, was engaged with the racket. 

TRP is an instrument to decide which TV programs are seen the most and furthermore shows the watchers' decision and fame of a specific channel. 

The Mumbai police crime branch, which uncovered the TRP racket, has captured proprietors of two Marathi channels, for controlling viewership appraisals, the authority said. 

 

Republic TV is likewise associated with the TRP racket and people liable for this will likewise be arrested regardless of whether one is chief, advertiser or some other worker of the channel, the police magistrate said. The channel proprietor, chiefs and advertisers will likewise be examined, he included.

 

Bank accounts of these channels are likewise being tested and individuals liable for the TRP racket are being called by police for additional examination for the situation, he said. 

"Based on these TRP ratings, advertisers pay to advertise on these channels and it is a game of thousands of crore," Singh said.

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Manipulated TRP ratings result in miscalculated targeted audience for the advertisers, he said, adding this results in losses of hundreds of crores of rupees because of such manipulations and fake statistics of TRPs. TRP is calculated on the basis of TV channel viewership in a confidential set of household. 

Singh said those involved in the racket would bribe people in these households and ask them to keep some channels switched on even when they weren't watching or not at home.

The Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) releases weekly rating points for TV channels in India and its officials are also being questioned in connection with the case, he said.

There are 2,000 barometers installed in Mumbai to monitor TRPs, he said, adding BARC gave contract to an agency called 'Hansa' for monitoring these barometers.

 

The two channel owners arrested were produced in court and Mumbai police have got their custody, he said. The arrests were made under sections 409 and 420 of IPC, he added.

"We suspect that if this was happening in Mumbai then it could be happening in other parts of the country as well," he added.

BARC is an industry body set up to design, commission, supervise and own an accurate, reliable and timely TV audience measurement system and is guided by recommendations of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. It helps provide data points to plan media spends more effectively.

Hansa filed a complaint of the TRP racket, following which an offence was registered, he said.

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"During the investigation it came to light that some former employees of the agency were involved in compromising the data and they were sharing it with some television companies," he said.

It was revealed that these persons had manipulated the sampling metering services by inducing the barometer users through periodical payments to watch particular TV channels, he said.

Many people in whose homes these barometers have been installed, have accepted that they were getting monetary benefit for keeping their TV sets on even when they did not watch it, the IPS officer said.

This was apparently done for "wrongful gains" of some TV channels and resulted in losses to advertisers and their agencies, he said.

 

The statement by the editor-in-chief of Republic TV, Arnab Goswami, said the Mumbai police chief has made false claims against it as the channel had questioned him in the Sushant Singh Rajput case investigation.

The news channel said it will file a criminal defamation case against Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh. BARC has not mentioned the channel even in a single complaint, it said, adding Singh should issue an official apology and get ready to face the channel in court.