Mumbai: Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh said that it has busted a major racket indulged in Television Ratings Points (TRP) manipulation.
The investigation has revealed that in the investigation carried so far that certain TV channels such as Republic, Fakt Marathi, Box cinema etc have been indulged in the malpractice.
The Detection Crime Branch has arrested two persons in connection with the fraud. The officers said that investigations revealed that the accused persons manipulated the sampling metering services by inducing the barometers installed by Broadcast Audience Research Council India (BARC), an organization functioning under the governance of Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
BARC has installed approximately 30000 barometers in various parts of the country which monitor various programmes and based on the statistical metrics, BARC awards ratings to various TV channels. Clients pay for their advertisers based on the ratings awarded by BARC.
Through manipulation, the investigation officers claims, various TV channels have gained wrongfully and resulted in huge loss to various advertisers and their agencies.
Preliminary investigations also revealed that these accused persons have manipulated the sampling metering services by inducing the barometer users by paying them periodically to watch particular tv channels.