New Delhi: News Broadcasters Federation, the largest congregation of news broadcasters has expressed its extreme displeasure and disappointed over BARC withholding the television ratings for the news genre, despite clear directions from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on Wednesday (12 January 2022), to resume release of ratings with immediate effect.
In a strongly worded statement NBF said, “The audience viewership data is with BARC and withholding it despite clear instruction from the Ministry, is not necessary. BARC should comply and release the ratings of news channels without any further delay. If there are news channels that don’t want ratings they can be voluntarily exempt.”
NBF also called upon BARC to release the ratings and not delay this any further, to put an end to the severe challenge the news genre was facing as advertising was deeply hurt in absence of any ratings.
“BARC, the only television audience measurement rating agency registered by the MIB had paused the release of their audience ratings for news genre for over 16 months – since October 15, 2020. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on January 12, 2022, had asked BARC to resume the release of audience data with immediate effect in a monthly format on a ‘four-week rolling average concept’ added the statement.
