NEW DELHI: On Friday, Mumbai police made a shocking revelation in the TRP scam case, saying that Times now, the number one channel of the English news genre, was deliberately pushed to number two.
At a press conference on the PRT scam, Milind Bharambe of the Mumbai Police Joint Crime CP said: “A detailed report reveals that PRT manipulation has been going on since 2016.”
To a specific question as to whether the Times Now channel was deliberately chosen as number 2 in TRP’s rankings, Bharambe said: “According to the report, yes.”
Bharambe said the report showed that TV ratings it seemed to be predetermined.
Details of the police investigation have revealed that the former executive director of the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) Partho dasgupta, who was arrested Thursday, had facilitated malpractices with other television news channels to downgrade Times Now’s ratings.
The scam took place when Dasgupta was the head of BARC from 2013 to 2019. During that period, many tried to expose the manipulation that was being done, but the whistleblowers were clinically repressed. He has now been detained until December 28.
The bogus TRP scam came to light in October when the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) rating agency filed a complaint through 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 continue broadcasting their programs.
Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh had said that Republic TV and two Marathi channels, Box Cinema and Fakt Marathi, were involved in manipulating the TRPs.
On video: TRP scam: Times Now was deliberately placed at No. 2, Mumbai police say
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