The Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) on Thursday said it has temporarily suspended weekly ratings for news channels.
This comes after the Mumbai Police last week claimed to have busted a TRP manipulation racket involving Republic TV and two Marathi channels.
BARC said its Technical Committee (Tech Comm) shall review and augment the current standards of measuring and reporting the data of niche genres to improve their statistical robustness, according to The Financial Express.
“Starting with the ‘News Genre’, BARC will cease publishing the weekly individual ratings for all news channels during the exercise. This exercise is expected to take around 8-12 weeks including validation and testing under the supervision of BARCs Tech Comm,” the ratings agency said, according to the report.
BARC will continue to release weekly audience estimates for the genre of news by state and language.
The News Broadcasters Association has welcomed BARC’s decision.
The Supreme Court Thursday asked the Republic Media Group to approach the Bombay High Court in the TRP scam case registered by the Mumbai Police.
A bench comprising Justice DY Chandrachud, Indu Malhotra and Indira Banerjee said the high court has been working throughout the Covid-19 pandemic and the media group should approach it as its office is located at Worli, according to PTI.
(With PTI inputs)