There’s urgent need to take closer look at the way BARC tabulates news ratings: iNews
We are disturbed to notice emails exchanged within BARC over a period of time, especially about the Telugu news genre, says the channel
Reacting to the claims made by Mumbai police against former BARC officials in a supplementary chargesheet filed in the TRP scam, iNews (Telugu) has said that there is an urgent need to take a closer look at the way news ratings are tabulated by BARC.
“We have accessed parts of the BARC forensic audit report, details of which are now placed in court. We are disturbed to notice emails exchanged within BARC over a period of time, especially about the Telugu news genre,” the channel said in a statement.
“Some of the excerpts of the BARC internal emails indicate that the ratings may have been manipulated over a long period of time. One such email dated 23rd July, 2018 says ‘same with Inews - let's reduce a bit more’. This is just one of the many emails we have come across as part of this forensic audit report.”
“These are concerns we at iNews have been raising with the BARC administration for several years now, and have also met the BARC leadership on the same to address urgently. We re-assert the urgent need to take a closer look at the way news ratings are tabulated by BARC,” the statement read further.
“Why has BARC concealed this information and why wasn’t this matter investigated?,” iNews asked.
The Mumbai Police has arrested former BARC CEO Partho Dasgupta and former BARC COO Romil Ramgarhia for allegedly manipulating TV ratings.
