Owing to the controversy surrounding its viewership data of new channels, the television ratings agency, Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), has paused weekly ratings of television news for a period of three months. This could cover all Hindi , Regional, English News and Business News channels with immediate effect.
BARC will not publish the weekly individual ratings for all news channels during this period. However the agency will release weekly audience estimates for the news genre by state and language.
Announcing the decision, BARC said a technical committee would review the current standards of measuring and reporting the data of niche genres.
Given the most recent developments, the BARC Board was of the opinion that a pause was necessitated to enable the industry and BARC to work closely to review its already stringent protocols and further augment them to enable the industry to focus on collaborating for growth and well-natured competitiveness,” Punit Goenka, Chairman of BARC India Board said.
BARC measures TV viewership on behalf of broadcasters, advertisers and advertising agencies.
The News Broadcasters Association (NBA) has welcomed the decision. NBA, which represents the news broadcasters, believes that the suspension is an important step in the right direction.
The Mumbai Police is probing the fraudulent manipulation of TRPs involving three channels — Republic, Fakt Marathi, and Box Cinema — mainly in the city.
Four persons have been arrested in the case so far and the police are on the lookout for three others. Of those arrested, one is a former employee of Hansa Research that calculated TRPs of channels for Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC).
