The arrest came a day after the Broadcast Audience Research Council (Barc) halted its weekly rating for all news outlets for the next three months on Thursday.
Earlier this week, the Mumbai Police Crimes Division arrested Vinay Tripathi, a former employee of the Mirzapur Hansa Investigation Group in Uttar Pradesh. Tripathi was the fifth person arrested in the case.
The other four people arrested by the Mumbai police are: Vishal Bhandari, 20, a former Hansa employee; Bompalli Rao aka Sanjiv Rao, 44 (on October 6); Shirish Shetty, owner of Fakt Maratha; and Narayan Sharma of Box Cinema (October 9).
Mumbai Chief Police Officer Param Bir Singh announced on October 8 that he had cracked a scam to manipulate TRP’s ratings and increase the advertising revenue of Republic TV and two Marathi channels, namely Box Cinema and Fakt Marathi.
According to the Mumbai police, families, including those living in slums, were paid between Rs 400-500 per month to keep the 3 channels turned on to manipulate PRTs.
Broadcast Audience Research Council (Barc) awarded the contract to install 1,800 barometers in Mumbai to monitor TRPs to a company called Hansa Research.
Hansa filed a police complaint against some former employees who used data from homes where TRP monitoring systems were installed. So far, Mumbai Police have recorded statements from Republic Group CEO Vikas Khanchandani, Republic TV CFO Shiva Sundaram, COO Hersh Bhandari and CEO Niranjan Narayanswami; Praveen Nijhar, CEO of Hansa.
(With inputs from agencies)
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