Mumbai: In a major breakthrough to the on-going stalemate between News Broadcasters Association (NBA) and joint industry body BARC India, due to the issue of various News Channels running Multiple LCNs, almost all the NBA Member English News channels, who withdrew the subscription, had switched back to BARC India.
The development was confirmed by BARC India to tvnews4u.com. All the English News channels are back with BARC effective from the mid night of 26th May 2017.
Earlier, NBA aggressively pushed BARC India to stop publishing the ratings of Republic TV for week 19 (first week ratings of the channel) accusing it of running Multiple LCNa. However, BARC India has turned down the request and went on to publish the ratings of week 19 with Republic TV that altered the equations with major number churning in English News Space.
Further developments resulted in to war of words between NBA, Republic TV and BARC India. However, BARC India stood firmly on its decision and issued a statement stating that the practice of running Multiple LCNs are part of every News Channels distribution strategy to achieve better numbers.
NBA’s position was weakened by data from Gracenote and other monitoring agencies that revealed many channels involved in the practice of Multiple LCNs. The Delhi High Court’s refusal to entertain the case filed by TV Today Network and it’s advice to resolve the issue with regulatory body TRAI has forced a rethink in the approach of NBA member channels.
As the solution to the issue was not looking to be anywhere nearer, the channels were left with no other option than returning back to BARC in-order to protect their commercial interest.
Now, the Channels need to resolve the issue with TRAI with data proving almost everyone involving in the act of running Multiple LCNs.
