Mumbai Police in its 3,600-page supplementary chargesheet filed earlier this week has submitted proofs of the alleged connivance between BARC India’s former employees and Republic TV owners. 

Screenshots of WhatsApp chats between Republic Media Network’s Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami and former BARC India CEO Partho Dasgupta, and Republic CEO Vikas Khanchandani and former BARC India COO Romil Ramgarhia, which were submitted as evidence, detailed how they allegedly discussed everything from programming and distribution strategy to political proximity.

While Goswami shared Republic’s programming strategy on a frequent basis, Dasgupta was found guiding him on ad break strategy, the chats purportedly showed.

New Delhi: The News Broadcasters Federation, the country’s largest trade body of TV news channels, demands the immediate release of the audience measurement ratings of news genre by BARC and also requests the agency to take corrective measures for future data. Any further withholding of data beyond the initially envisaged 12-weeks is counterproductive.

News channels employ hundreds of thousands of media professionals and their livelihood depends on the revenues generated by news channel and is directly related to the audience measurement data (TRPs).  Therefore, NBF calls upon the stakeholders of BARC to initiate steps to resume release of ratings of news channels with immediate effect.  We believe the data is also critical for both ISA AND AAAI, the major stakeholders of the advertising fraternity.

The News Broadcasters Association (NBA) has apparently written to BARC suggesting them to extend the blackout period that was supposed to end on January 16 for another two to three months.

According to sources, NBA has also enquired about the ‘cleansing processes’ that BARC was supposed to take up in these three months of blackout period for TV news viewership data.

On October 15 last year, amidst the controversy over TRP manipulation, the BARC Board proposed that its Technical Committee (Tech Comm) would review and augment the existing 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. This exercise was targeted towards all Hindi, Regional, English News and Business News. Starting the same week, BARC ceased publishing the weekly individual ratings for all news channels. This exercise was expected to take around 8-12 weeks, including validation and testing under the supervision of BARC’s Tech Comm.

The News Broadcasters Federation, the country’s largest trade body of TV news channels, demands the immediate release of the audience measurement ratings of news genre by BARC and also requests the agency to take corrective measures for future data. Any further withholding of data beyond the initially envisaged 12-weeks is counterproductive. 

News channels employ hundreds of thousands of media professionals and their livelihood depends on the revenues generated by a news channel and is directly related to the audience measurement data (TRPs).  Therefore, NBF calls upon the stakeholders of BARC to initiate steps to resume the release of ratings of news channels with immediate effect. We believe the data is also critical for both ISA AND AAAI, the major stakeholders of the advertising fraternity.

Lupa Systems CEO James Murdoch and Uday Shankar, the former Chairman and CEO of Star India and President of Walt Disney Asia Pacific, announced today that they are forming a new venture to explore technology and media opportunities in emerging markets.

The new partnership reunites Murdoch and Shankar, who worked together building Star India into the region's largest media company, prior to its sale as part of the merger of 21st Century Fox and The Walt Disney Company.  Star now reaches 600m+ viewers every week and operates Hotstar, Asia's leading OTT platform.

The committee formed by the government to review TV viewership/TRP has submitted its report. Formed by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on November 4, 2020, the committee is chaired by Prasar Bharati CEO Shashi ShekharVempati, along with three other experts including Upadhyay (RajkumarUpadhyay, Executive Director, C-DOT. They all have done great work and have submitted the report today. Now, the ministry will study/review the report and will take further actions accordingly. The main point is that there should be transparency in TRP. Today, TRP transparency is based on 55,000 meters.

“The ministry will review it and then decide on the future course of action. The fundamental issue is there should be greater transparency in TRPs and the base of people meters be widened so that there is no scope for manipulation,” union minister of information and broadcasting Prakash Javadekar said to the media on Tuesday.

Last month, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) had intimated that work on the new policy was in full swing. Information and Broadcasting Ministry recently informed that the copy of National Broadcasting Policy draft will soon be shared with Prasar Bharati, CEO, Shashi Shekhar Vempati for the consultation.

Indiantelevision.com has accessed the draft. Also the draft is been shared with scientific ministries as the Department of Telecommunications, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology on the lines of utilisation of spectrum, emerging technologies, trends in the broadcasting sector, increasing outreach of TV & radio households.

The supplementary chargesheet against Republic TV CEO Vikas Khanchandani, former BARC CEO Partho Dasgupta and former BARC COO Romil Ramgarhia in connection with the TRP manipulation case Mumbai police claims to have explicit proof against Khanchandani for manipulating TRP of two particular channels.

The chargesheet highlights how the police have access to the internal discussion in WhatsApp groups that took place between Khanchandani and Republic TV COO Priya Mukherjee that clearly exposes their strategy of using dual/ promotional LCN for illegally maximizing revenue.

MUMBAI: In a challenging year for India and the world, it was reassuring to see an increase in ad volumes on TV in the second half of 2020. Hindustan Unilever was the biggest advertiser in 2020 with a 30 per cent growth in ad volumes over 2019, followed by the Reckitt Benckiser group, with itsad volumes growing by 37 per cent in 2020 over the previous year. 

NEW DELHI: NDTV founders and promoters Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy have filed an appeal in the Supreme Court against the interim order dated 4 January 2021 passed by the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT). The order directed NDTV to deposit 50 per cent of the fine levied by SEBI.

The SAT order said, “Deposit 50 per cent of the disgorged amount before the respondent within four weeks from today. If the said amount is deposited the balance amount shall not be recovered during the pendency of the appeal.”

SAT further stated that the appeals filed by the founders require consideration and directed to list the matter for final disposal on 10 February 2021.