Mumbai police on Thursday said it had busted a Television Rating Points (TRP) manipulation racket, which involved Republic TV and two Marathi channels.
TRP is a tool to judge which TV programmes are viewed the most and also indicates the viewers’ choice and popularity of a particular channel.
Republic TV has been facing flak over its attack on Mumbai police and Maharashtra government in its coverage of the Sushant Singh Rajpur death case.
The Detection Crime Branch of Mumbai police, which unearthed the TRP racket, has arrested owners of two Marathi channels, for manipulating viewership ratings, the official said.
Republic TV is also involved in the TRP racket and persons responsible for this will also be arrested, whether one is director, promoter or any other employee of the channel, the police commissioner said.
Officials of Republic TV will be summoned today or tomorrow, police said.
Advertisers will be asked whether they were victims of the crime or party to the racket, he said.
Editor-in-Chief of Republic Arnab Goswami released a statement saying the channel would file a criminal defamation case against the police chief. “He should issue a public apology or get ready to face us in court,” Goswami said.
Mumbai police said the scam focussed on how households were paid to watch certain channels and keep them switched on even when no one was watching.
“If you see the data, poor uneducated households, who don’t speak English were watching only English TV channels,” Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh said. Every household was allegedly paid Rs. 400-500 per month.
Bank accounts of these channels are being probed and people responsible for the TRP racket are being summoned by police for further investigation in the case, the police commissioner said.
Republic TV claims to have the highest TRPs among news channels.
(With PTI inputs)