Fake TV Ratings Case: BARC Decides To Pause Television Rating Point For 12 Weeks For News Channels

Starting with the ‘News Genre’, BARC will cease publishing the weekly individual ratings for all news channels during the exercise.

TRP suspended for 12 weeks: In the wake of the recent fake TRP scandal by a few media channels, Broadcast Audience Research Council  (BARC) has decided to stop the  weekly individual ratings for all news channels for 12 weeks, a decision which has been welcomed by the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) which represents the private television news and current affairs broadcasters. In a statement, BARC said that its Technical Committee (Tech Comm) shall review and augment the current standards of measuring and reporting the data of niche genres to improve their statistical robustness. It said that the exercise would cover all Hindi, Regional, English News and Business News channels with immediate effect. Starting with the ‘News Genre’, BARC will cease publishing the weekly individual ratings for all news channels during the exercise. It will however continue to release the weekly audience estimates for the genre of news by state and language. The decision is taken in the wake of the alleged recent manipulation of TRP by a few channels, as revealed by Mumbai police. The Mumbai police has registered a case in the TRP scam and summoned Republic TV's chief financial officer S Sundaram for investigation. The alleged fake TRP scam came to light when ratings agency Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) filed a complaint through Hansa Research Group, alleging that certain television channels were rigging TRP numbers. It has been alleged that some families at whose houses metres for collecting data of viewership were installed were bribed to tune into a particular channel. (This is a breaking news story. Please refresh for latest update.)