According to the Mumbai police remand notice, accessed by Times Now, Dasgupta abused his position as BARC CEO and manipulated TRPs in favor of Republic TV.
He received thousands of rupees over a period of time to manipulate TRPs for the benefit of Republic TV and Republic Bharat channels.
Dasgupta was arrested by the Mumbai Police Crimes Division for his role in the PRT manipulation scandal. In a statement, the police called the former BARC official the “mastermind” of the scandal.
According to the police, the manipulation had been going on at least between 2016 and 2019 when Dasgupta was the CEO of BARC. Dasgupta was CEO of BARC between June 2013 and November 2019.
Mumbai Police have been investigating the TRP tampering case since BARC, a rating agency, earlier this year complained to the police that some channels were tampering with TRPs.
The bogus TRP scam came to light in October when BARC filed a complaint through the Hansa Research Group, alleging that certain TV stations were tampering with TRP’s numbers.
Hansa was tasked with installing barometers, which record audience data (which channel has been watched and for how long) in the sample households. The channels are accused of paying money to households to maintain their programs.
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