Republic TV has flatly denied the Mumbai police charges.
Mumbai:
The investigation into the manipulation of ratings by three channels, including Republic TV, is based on a complaint by Hansa, a private company involved in the audience assessment, Mumbai Police Chief Param told NDTV today. Bir Singh, shortly after announcing an explosive “TRP scandal”.
Singh also said that the BARC (Broadcast Audience Research Council) gave evidence of rigged ratings based on data from households where barometers were installed.
“We have evidence from BARC on suspicious patterns. We are collecting more evidence,” he told NDTV. The charges listed in the First Mumbai Police Information Report (FIR) include criminal violation of privilege and cheating, he said.
“Any advertising revenue made by manipulating audience ratings is a crime. We will investigate. We have three months to do so.”
Denying that the Mumbai police investigation against the channels was in any way related to the media attacks linked to the Sushant Singh Rajput case, Singh said: “The complaint was made by the independent agency Hansa, not by us. They noticed suspicious trends, not us. They noticed suspicious trends in ratings or certain channels. They shared details of discrepancies. “
On whether Republic TV was named by the plaintiff, Singh said: “BARC relayed a suspicious trend to us. Household names were shared by BARC and Hansa. Households told us they were being paid money to watch channels to increase PRTs. “
According to him, the details of the households with barometers were shared with the channels and these households were asked to keep certain channels on at all times, even when no one was home. “We have called three witnesses who were paid money to watch a particular channel,” said the Mumbai police chief.
Singh denied any retaliation by launching an investigation against Republic TV, which has been extremely critical of the Mumbai police in connection with the Sushant Singh Rajput investigation.
“I do not have a great plan to clean the system. We received a complaint and we will do a professional job, we will collect evidence. We do not proceed against anyone with vendetta,” he said.
“More than a lakh of fake accounts and bots were created to smear our image and sections of the media were also involved. But our investigations into the Sushant Singh Rajput case were professional and the Supreme Court approved it too. Our investigation into the TRP case also be professional ”, he said.
Four people, including the owners of two small channels, have been arrested and the directors and promoters of Republic TV are being investigated for ratings fraud, he said.
Republic TV has flatly denied the charges. In a statement, the channel’s editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami said he would sue the Mumbai police commissioner and accused him of making false accusations because he had questioned him in the investigation of the Sushant Singh Rajput case. “You should either issue a public apology or prepare to face us in court,” Goswami said.
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