BARC in Action: Five persons arrested in Bengaluru on charges of tampering data

Bengaluru: In major breakthrough to the Broadcast Audience Research Council’s efforts to nab the culprits trying to tamper the data and bring them before law, the Cyber Crime police have arrested five persons based on the complaint launched by BARC.

The list of arrested persons including a TV serial producer, Raju, who Produces Kannada daily serial “Kaveri” on Udaya TV at 7:00 PM. Earlier, he has produced “Amma Ninnegage” on ETV Kannada (Now Colors Kannada) that went on air for a very long period of time. He has also produced a serial for Suvarna. The fiction show Kaveri is being aired since June 2017.

It is alleged that Raju used to illegally increase the Television Rating Point (TRP) of certain programmes by means of tampering the samples in Karnataka market.

Other accused are Suresh, Jemsy and Subhash who are based in Bengaluru, and Madhu from Mysuru town. The arrested persons were remanded in judicial custody and the police are further probing the issue to identity the list of producers involved in such kind of malpractices.

According to the statement issued by Cyber Crime Police, Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) had filed a complaint with the Cyber Crime police station in the Bengaluru City stating that TRP was hiked using fraudulent means, due to which the TV channels would earn a huge sum. As the ratings are fake and channels demand huge price for advertising during certain programs, the company airing advertisements suffered huge losses.

“An FIR was registered in this regard and during the course of investigation, it was found that a group of people were involved in illegally hiking the TRP by using multiple televisions and also by paying a small sum to those people in whose houses the TRP meter would be installed, and asking them to watch a particular channel at a particular time. On getting credible information, police arrested the five accused. Investigations revealed that Raju and his team were working for it. Also, this year, BARC had given a contract to a new firm to install the TRP meters. The role of staff in that firm is also being investigated,” the police said.

Raju used to approach other producers of TV serials and promised them that he would get the highest rating for their serial in return of huge cash payments. It is not clear whether he has involved in tampering the data for his own program Kaveri that is being aired on Sun TV Network’s Kannada GEC Udaya TV. However, the issues raises a serious question on performance of the many other show.

BARC is expected to act against people based on the outcome of the investigation. Skeletons of expected tumble out based on the investigations and the list of producers involved in such malpractices might be shown the door by the respective TV channels.

tvnews4u is in the process of analysing the past data of Karnataka market to understand the pattern of ratings and channel performances in the past couple of months.