BARC's former CEO is TRP scam mastermind allege Mumbai Police

Partho Dasgupta, the former CEO of BARC, is being taken to the Crime Branch in Mumbai on Friday. Pic/Suresh Karkera

Mumbai police on Friday said the former chief executive officer (CEO) of BARC was the mastermind in the TRP rigging scam. Partho Dasgupta played a major role in making Republic TV the number one news channel since its launch in 2017, they added.

Dasgupta, the former CEO of Broadcast Research Audience Council (BARC), was arrested in Pune on Thursday and produced before a Mumbai court on Friday. The former executive, who was the 15th person to be arrested in the Television Rating Points (TRP) manipulation scam, has been sent to police custody till December 28.

Was a suspect for long
Addressing the media late on Friday, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Milind Bharambe said that his name had emerged during the initial investigation in the case. But, Dasgupta was arrested only after the Crime Branch's Special Investigation Team collected every piece of evidence against him.

According to the Crime Branch, WhatsApp messages and emails between Dasgupta and former BARC COO Romil Ramgariha, another accused in the case, had discussions about manipulation and making Republic TV the number one channel.

Rigging started in 2016
"There were various complaints of TRP manipulation while Dasgupta was the BARC CEO, but those allegations were suppressed. A third party audit was organised after a new committee took over and submitted its report in July 2020, which we received last week," said Bharambe. The report has mentioned how viewership and TRP was manipulated, he added.

The BARC report mentions that the rank of Times Now, which was once number one, slipped after TRP manipulation by former BARC CEO, Bharambe said. He added that the rigging started in 2016 and went on till 2019.

"The rating was pre-decided by top former BARC officials, then the data was manipulated with the help of three different methods called outlier method, meta rule and channel audience control," Bharambe said. On being asked whether Dasgupta received financial benefits from Republic TV, the JCP said, "This is being investigated but [he] won't do such favours without getting anything in return." Republic TV has called the police's claim "laughable" and alleged that they are trying to target the channel.