New Delhi: The Telecom regulatory authority of India (TRAI) issued a showcase notice to the BARC India as the company fails to release the Weekly TV viewership Data in their site as mandated by TRAI in its directive on 22nd February demanding rating agency to release the Viewership data on their site available for public access with immediate effect.
BARC India issued a statement in response to TRAI’s Showcase notice that “BARC India is a joint industry body, and operates under selfregulation model, in compliance with Ministry of I&B Guidelines. In the NTO transition period, due to disruptions in distribution there is volatility in data”
“Putting such misleading data on the website would be against public interest and could be misused. BARC is constantly monitoring the ground situation on this. We have made detailed submissions to TRAI and MIB, backed by data, on several occasions. Even though the data is pulled down from the site, there is no stoppage of data supply to our clients” a Spokesperson from BARC India said.
TRAI in its earlier directive stated that BARC India has modified its Fair and Permissible Usage Policy in February 14, 2019, even after being repeatedly asked by the authority to not stop publishing of rating data and viewership data on its website during the migration to new regulatory framework until and unless explicitly permitted by the authority.
BARC in its argument on suspending the data from site said “As there is a disruption in migration to a new regulatory framework, few consumers might fails to access channels of their choice thereby resulting in inaccurate portrayal of TV viewership data in the country”
