In the midst of the fake Television Rating Points (TRP) scam, the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) which monitors the TRP, on Thursday announced a temporary suspension of weekly ratings of news channels across languages.
The council intends to review and augment the current standards of measurement to improve on “statistical robustness”, and the exercise will result in a “pause” in the weekly ratings for up to 12 weeks, an official statement said.
So far five people have been arrested by the Mumbai police who had busted the scam earlier this month. Those arrested include news channel employees. The police are also questioning the executives of Arnab Goswami-led Republic Media Group with regard to the case. Republic Media Group has, however, denied any wrongdoing.
“In the light of the recent developments, BARC Board has proposed that it’s technical committee review and augment the current standards of measuring and reporting the data of niche genres, to improve their statistical robustness and to significantly hamper the potential attempts of infiltrating the panel homes,” an official statement said.
The exercise would cover all Hindi, Regional, English News, and Business News channels with immediate effect, it added.
