The technical committee of BARC (Broadcast Audience Research Council) suspended on 15 October 2020 the TRP (Television Rating Point) ratings for all English, Hindi and regional news channels in India for 12 weeks or three months during which the weekly ratings for individual news channels will not be published while weekly ratings by language and state continue. The suspension period, as the reports say, would be used entirely by BARC to completely review and reorganize its rule sets for calculating TRP numbers and would therefore try to make the rating agency statistics of world’s largest television are credible. and Reliable Up to this point, the rules were based on the viewing patterns of a sample of 40,000 households or 180,000 viewers nationwide through the installation of a people meter on their televisions, to determine viewing standards and patterns. almost 200 million TV watching households or around 836 million viewers in India. The president of the Newscasters Association (NBA) has welcomed the decision as a step in the right direction.
This decision comes as a result of the fixation of TRP by some news channels, mainly Republic TV. BARC recently filed a complaint in this regard with the Mumbai Police through Hansa Research Group. The complaint alleged that these channels are bribing families whose televisions have meters installed to collect audience data in order to continuously tune to the particular channels. Consequently, the Mumbai Police Commissioner held a press conference in Mumbai to announce the initiation of investigations to probe channels allegedly trying to manipulate TRP data for more advertising revenue.
This development was also preceded by some stormy months during which some news channels had launched media lawsuits to turn the apparent suicide of a rising movie star, Sushant Singh Rajput, into a murder conspiracy and campaigns accordingly. of “investigation” to howl at the bloodletting of the ‘defendants’ along with smear campaigns to smear various movie celebrities allegedly associated with the ‘murder’ and drug abuse charges. The Maharashtra government and Mumbai police were also vilified in the campaigns. Three top-tier investigative agencies were staged to file charge sheets and jail ‘defendants’, primarily named in media trials, all for apparent political gain. At the moment, their investigations are almost exhausted, none of them can justify the angle of the murder. In the month of October 2020, all the major producers of the Hindi film industry, Bollywood, filed a petition in the Delhi High Court complaining about the media judgments and smear campaigns of two prominent national news channels, Republic and Times Now. Meanwhile, watching or not watching news channels has become an existential crisis for ordinary people in the country.
In fact, since the Hindu nationalist NDA government came to power in India in 2014 and its aggressive push for a Hindu nation, Indian news channels and media have become increasingly polarized along ideological lines, with some impulses schedule oriented. and brazenly communal campaigns while others fight with their neutral media outlets. Fake news and manipulations on social media have also been disturbing developments during the same period.
Under the liberal push of the government of Dr. Manmohan Singh in 1991, private international television broadcasting players were allowed to participate in the Indian broadcasting scene which had hitherto been dominated by the national broadcaster Doordarshan. So, satellite cable entertainment channels had started appearing since the early 1990s, and news channels had started to proliferate since the mid-1990s. The fierce competition thus began with the proliferation of channels fighting for their respective audience segments. Audience research had thus become a matter of paramount importance.
TAM or Television Audience Measurement, a private company for measuring television audience in India, started operating from the mid-1990s and was soon joined with INTAM or Indian National Television Audience Measurement by ORG-MARG. TRP’s measurement and competition journey had always been a sloppy journey with most channels contesting the statistical figures making their own claims and some of them launching bitter legal battles against the agencies. In view of this, the Government of India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting began deliberations in 2008 to build a more credible and comprehensive rating agency, trying to involve all stakeholders in the business. After various reports by various committees and recommendations by TRAI (Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of India), the BARC concept was formalized in 2010 as a joint industry body founded by the stakeholders: the broadcasters, advertisers and advertising agencies. and media, and started its operations from 2013-14. In a historic move in 2015, TAM and INTAM merged with BARC. However, recent developments and various charges/indictments in the previous years have once again shown that a complete and trustworthy rating agency is still a distant dream.
While audience research and rating for competing broadcast groups cannot be eliminated, TRP analysis for news channels can definitely be abolished entirely, leaving news channels to focus on good, unbiased content. to win the respective audience. This would also free sober news channels from unnecessary merciless warfare or controversial statistics or PRT manipulation. In addition, the news is very close to physical reality, informing viewers about developments in all fields of activity, and any manipulation of the content of the news, making it biased, false or simply unreliable would be an absolute disservice to citizens. . For this reason, we also join the many voices that are already on the rise, for a total stoppage of the TRP system for the news channels. The suspension is very welcome, but it has to be the precursor to more drastic action.