The Mumbai Police claims to have successfully busted a racket which involves various media and television channels that have been engaged in enhancing their viewership and TRPs using unfair means. The Mumbai Police has busted the racket that has allegedly been involved in fraudulently manipulating the TRPs of many popular news and entertainment channels.
Watch | “Mumbai Police has been alerted about a new racket involving false TRP”: Paramvir Singh, Mumbai Police Commissioner briefs media pic.twitter.com/GM5RYpvFMX
— NDTV (@ndtv) October 8, 2020
The Police Commissioner of Mumbai Police Param Bir Singh has gone ahead and said that these three channels have been engaged in malpractices to get higher TRPs. Three channels have been found involved in this business and the three channels as named by him are Fakt Marathi, Box Cinema and Republic. The probe has found that these channels engaged in fraudulent malpractices that would help them to enhance their TRPs and show as if they had the largest viewership in the country.
Ideally, TRP measuring devices are kept in undisclosed locations and it is based on their findings that the Broadcast Audience Research Council measures the TRPs of various channels. But it has been alleged by the Police that these three channels were engaged in manipulating these devices and were paying some people to ensure that the channels were constantly being switched on so as to show compared to other television channels.
He also said that the intensity and spread of the fraud was such that many households were being paid as much as Rs 500 every day just to keep the television channel on.
Upon spotting unusual trends in the TRPs the police conducted a probe and found several malpractices being carried out to increase TRPs by these channels. The Crime Branch has registered an FIR on charges of cheating and criminal breach of trust. Several arrests have also been made in this regard.
