Mumbai Police unearths TRP scam, tightens noose around BARC-linked agency Hansa's ex-staff

New Delhi:  The Mumbai Police on Thursday (October 7) claimed to have busted a Television Rating Points (TRP) manipulation racket. It has tightened the noose around former Hansa employees. The agency is associated with the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), which calculates the TRP.

Mumbai Police issued a statement on the TRP scam saying, "The complainant had mentioned the name of a channel in her application. When we began the investigation, no evidence was found against that channel. However, we found three channels including, Republic TV, and two Marathi channels — Box Cinema and Fakt Marathi, of rigging TRPs."

"Two people related to Box Cinema and Fakt Marathi channels have been arrested, while an investigation against the third channel, i.e. Republic TV, is underway," read the statement.

 Two employees of Hansa, which is responsible for the maintenance of over 3000 parameters across the country, including around 2000 in Mumbai, have allegedly been tampering with the TRP.

In a press conference, Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh said that ratings by BARC, an organisation under the Ministry of Information and Broadcast (I&B), had been manipulated. The police said that Hansa has misused the data, adding that sample houses, where barometers had been installed to monitor ratings, were paid to watch certain TV channels. 

Notably, TRP is a tool to judge which TV programmes are viewed the most and also indicates the viewers' choice and popularity of a particular channel.

The Mumbai police commissioner told reporters that a national TV news channel, allegedly facing flak over its attack on Mumbai police and Maharashtra government in the Sushant Singh Rajput death case, was also involved in the TRP racket.

The Detection Crime Branch of Mumbai police, which unearthed the TRP racket, has arrested owners of two Marathi channels, for manipulating viewership ratings, the official said.

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This national news channel is also involved in the TRP racket and persons responsible for this will also be arrested, whether one is director, promoter or any other employee of the channel, the police commissioner said. 

The police also named Republic TV along with two other news channels who have allegedly been involved in this malpractice.

Republic TV hits back at Mumbai Police 

Hitting back at the Mumbai Police, Republic TV`s Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami threatened to slap a criminal defamation case against Param Bir Singh, accusing the police chief of making "false allegations" against the Republic TV because the channel had questioned him in the investigations of the Sushant Singh Rajput case.

Issuing a statement, Arnab Goswami said, "Param Bir Singh`s investigation in the Sushant Singh Rajput case is under a cloud and this is a desperate measure because of Republic TV`s reportage on Palghar, the Sushant Singh Rajput case or any other case. This kind of targeting only strengthens the resolve of everyone at Republic TV to push for the truth even harder." 

The channel further said, "Param Bir Singh stands completely exposed today since BARC has not mentioned Republic in any single complaint. He should issue an official apology and get ready to face us in court."