News Broadcasting
Former BARC CEO, COO aided Republic TV in rigging TRPs: Police chargesheet
NEW DELHI: In the supplementary chargesheet filed in the alleged TRP manipulation case, the Mumbai police has once again reiterated that former BARC CEO Partho Dasgupta was the mastermind behind the whole scam. He allegedly used his position to aid ARG Outlier (Republic TV) in gaming viewership ratings.
The chargesheet further states that ARG Outlier Media CEO Vikas Khanchandani, along with COO Priya Mukherjee, carried out transactions in order to ensure that more viewers watch their channels. Their WhatsApp group chats, reportedly, support this allegation.
It also mentions that former BARC COO Romil Ramgarhia also aided Republic channels in manipulating the TRPs. Ramgarhia allegedly conducted internal inquiries into BARC through an independent company 'Acquisitory Risk Consulting Pvt Ltd' which gave him and his co-accused insight into the working of TRP calculation. The investigation also cites emails found in Ramgarhia’s work account which discussed how the BARC data is aiding Republic channels through rigged ratings.
The chargesheet also called out Republic TV for flouting TRAI regulations by paying cable operators and MSOs for using the 'dual/promotional local channel number' to telecast their news channels on more than one channel.
Along with these three charges, the supplementary chargesheet names 59 witnesses, which includes 12 expert witnesses (forensic auditors, computer forensics auditors).
The Mumbai police has reportedly also found some evidence against general entertainment channels and two Telugu regional channels as well, which they will be investigating further.
The crime branch filed its first charge sheet in November 2020 which included details of the first twelve accused.
The fake TRP case was filed in October after Nitin Deokar, an official of Hansa Research, an agency that placed the ratings metres, filed a complaint alleging the process was being manipulated.
After investigating the matter, the Mumbai police said Republic TV – which claims to have the highest ratings – was tweaking TRPs to get high advertising rates by bribing the households where the monitoring machines were set.
The channel has denied any wrongdoing and claimed the accusations were an instance of vendetta by the Mumbai police following their clash over the Sushant Singh Rajput case.
News Broadcasting
News TV viewership jumps 33 per cent as West Asia war draws audiences
BARC Week 8 data shows news share rising to 8 per cent despite T20 World Cup
NEW DELHI:Â Even as individual television news channel ratings remain under a temporary pause, the genre itself is seeing a clear surge in audience attention.
According to the latest data from Broadcast Audience Research Council India, television news recorded a 33 per cent jump in genre share in Week 8 of 2026, covering February 28 to March 6.
The news genre accounted for 8 per cent of total television viewership during the week, up from 6 per cent the previous week. The spike in attention coincided with escalating geopolitical tensions involving the United States, Israel and Iran, which have kept global headlines firmly fixed on West Asia.
The rise is notable because it came at a time when cricket was dominating television screens. The high-stakes stages of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, including the Super 8 fixtures and semi-finals, were being broadcast during the same period.
Despite the cricket frenzy, viewers appeared to be toggling between sport and global affairs, boosting the overall share of news programming.
The surge in genre share comes even as the government has enforced a one-month pause on publishing ratings for individual news channels. The move followed regulatory scrutiny of the television ratings ecosystem.
While channel-level rankings remain temporarily out of sight, the genre-level data suggests that when global tensions escalate, audiences continue to turn to television news for real-time updates.
