Kerala’s media sector has been jolted by explosive allegations of a large-scale manipulation of television ratings, with investigators uncovering what appears to be a ₹100-crore “rating chori” racket involving a Kerala-based news channel owner and a Mumbai-based employee of Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India. The emerging evidence, now under formal scrutiny by the Kerala Police, points to systemic abuse of the country’s TV measurement ecosystem that underpins a ₹50,000-crore advertising market.
Kerala State Police Chief Ravada Chandrashekhar confirmed that a preliminary probe has begun after the Kerala Television Federation lodged a complaint with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and BARC’s top leadership. Acting on the Chief Minister’s directives, a police team has started collecting digital and financial evidence, with the DGP describing the offence as “very serious” due to its potential impact on market fairness and advertiser trust.
According to the allegations, the channel owner transferred crores of rupees—reportedly amounting to nearly ₹100 crore—to a BARC employee identified as Premnath, who allegedly received the payments through USDT cryptocurrency routed to his Trust Wallet. Investigators believe the funds were subsequently dispersed to multiple beneficiaries, suggesting that similar manipulation networks could be active in other regions.
Key digital evidence, cited in the preliminary findings, includes leaked WhatsApp chats and extensive call records between the Kerala channel owner and the BARC employee. The chats reportedly show Premnath sharing weekly rating numbers in advance, acknowledging payments with brief messages and emojis, and providing sensitive details such as PIN codes of localities where BARC meters were installed. Police believe this allowed targeted attempts to influence viewing behaviour in selected households, thereby skewing the panel-based rating system.
One sequence of events flagged by investigators reportedly shows the pre-shared rating figures matching the official weekly BARC release exactly—being cited as potential direct proof of manipulation that boosted the paying channel’s numbers while undermining competitors.
The allegations also point to a deliberate misinformation strategy. The channel owner is said to have publicly attributed a sudden spike in viewership to landing-page placement on a minor North Kerala cable network with only around 20,000 subscribers, despite the state having an estimated 8.5 million cable connections. Investigators believe this claim was used as a cover to mask the artificial inflation of ratings.
Beyond television, the inquiry has uncovered a parallel digital operation, with the channel owner allegedly investing crores in “phone-farming” setups in Malaysia and Thailand to artificially inflate YouTube viewership using large clusters of devices. Paid social-media campaigns were also reportedly deployed to create a façade of rising popularity, bolstering the false narrative created by manipulated TRP data.
As evidence mounts, the police are examining financial trails, crypto-wallet flows, and call logs to determine the scale of the operation and identify additional participants. With the case now officially under investigation, the development raises broader concerns about the integrity of audience measurement systems and the vulnerabilities exposed within the media ecosystem.
Further action will depend on the findings of the police probe, which is expected to widen in the coming weeks as authorities trace the money flow, digital footprints, and possible interstate links in the alleged TRP manipulation network.
