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BARC to pause weekly ratings of news channels amid viewership row
New Delhi/IBNS: India's television ratings agency is set to pause its weekly audience estimates of all news channels amid the row over the alleged rigging of ratings by three channels.
The Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) has decided to pause the weekly ratings of all Hindi, Regional, English News and Business News channels for 8-12 weeks to "review and augment the current standards of measuring and reporting the data of niche genres".
Explaining the need for this move, Punit Goenka, chairman of BARC India Board said, "Given the most recent developments, the BARC Board was of the opinion that a pause was necessitated to enable the industry and BARC to work closely to review its already stringent protocols and further augment them to enable the industry to focus on collaborating for growth and well-natured competitiveness."
Sunil Lulla, CEO, BARC India, said, "We at BARC take our role in truthfully and faithfully reporting ‘What India Watches’ with the greatest sense of responsibility and work with integrity to ensure that our audience estimates (ratings) remain true to their purpose”.
He added, “besides augmenting current protocols and benchmarking them with global standards, BARC is actively exploring several options to discourage unlawful inducement of its panel home viewers and further strengthening its Code of Conduct to Address Viewership Malpractice”.
The Mumbai Police last week named Republic TV among the three channels which have been investigated for allegedly rigging ratings, spreading fake narratives and gaining ad revenues.
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