News Broadcasting Association’s President, Rajat Sharma, has written to BARC, stating their displeasure at the inaction by BARC. The letter referred to the unusual ratings of TV9 Bharatvarsh. Sharma states in his letter, “This is to bring to your notice that for the last 8 weeks or more the ratings have been unusable. In particular, the ratings of TV 9 Bharatvarsh have been more than unusual. In this regard, we would like to draw your attention to the following facts regarding the unprecedented growth of viewership of TV9 Bharatvarsh and the frequent substantial swings in the English News genre. Sharma urged BARC to provide, “some straight answers on how BARC plans to rebuild a broken system” and what has been done so far to rectify the old mistakes and loopholes. “As far as we can see, it has become worse and it cannot go on like this,” he affirmed. He also stated, “The unstable data is restricted not just to TV9 but also permeates across the English news genre that is lately plagued by wild swings. If there is experimentation taking place we would like to be updated.”
Sharma re-emphasized the points raised in the previous letter and mentioned 12 points to support his concerns in his letter.
Sharma further said that several news broadcasters had written to BARC, drawing their attention that every week’s ratings are not in correlation to the basics of television. “The manipulated data is being released week after week without taking any remedial action. These are corrupt practices, which are being done with complete connivance with BARC and the broadcaster,” he alleged.
“Instead of looking into the problems being raised by broadcaster, we are shocked to receive an unwanted mail addressed to the President NBA from an official in BARC justifying the credibility of TV9 Bharatvarsh weekly data,” he added.
Sharma also demanded that BARC conducted an independent third-party inquiry to thorough We demand that BARC as an industry body should conduct an independent third- party inquiry, thoroughly investigate, take remedial actions and also take action against officials involved in corrupt practices, who must be removed from the Industry body, which is losing its credibility.
It becomes pertinent to remind you that we are stakeholders in BARC and we all agreed to its creation unanimously by removing the erstwhile TAM. The sole objective was to create a transparent and neutral system that seeks to address the erstwhile prevalent weaknesses in the system and make it robust. Further, at the time of the recent change in the top leadership of BARC, it was agreed that there would be a complete review of the team and its members at BARC for complete transparency and to restore the credibility of BARC. This has unfortunately not happened resulting in the continued menace and probable scope of manipulation and corruption of data. It is very evident that officeholders in charge of measurement science are overlooking some very odd behavior. They are clearly indifferent to the ground reality, market understanding, and maybe in their obsession to follow a hardcoded rule book are failing to catch the new anomalies.
I must convey that the members of the NBA Board feel extremely let down. The members have been very patient but it has been too long since it was broken. Some straight answers on how BARC plans to rebuild a broken system should be made to the members. What has been done so far to rectify the old mistakes and loopholes? As far as we can see, it has become worse and it cannot go on like this.
