TRP manipulation case: ED files case of money laundering

Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate, which investigates allegations of money laundering, has filed a case over alleged manipulation of television rating points (TRP). The ED’s case is based on a FIR registered by Mumbai Police in the matter. According to people in the know, the federal agency will soon summon the news channels and others named in the FIR.

Republic TV, Fakt Marathi, News Nation, Maha Movie and Box Cinema are being investigated by Mumbai Police for allegedly manipulating TRPs by bribing certain households to increase the viewership of their channels and programmes, according to the FIR in the case. While Republic TV was not named in the original FIR filed on October 8, the city police, while seeking remand of the arrested accused, had named the owner and those managing the affairs of the news channel as “wanted accused”.

“A manipulated TRP rating results in several advertisers to part with huge money to undeserving channels, thereby causing unlawful losses to all the concerned parties,” states the FIR filed by the Mumbai police.


The allegation is that confidential information on the location of metered television sets was leaked and viewers were paid to keep their sets tuned to specific channels.

Viewership monitoring agency BARC India had authorised subsidiary Meterology Data to install and operate the viewership meters through vendors. Five former employees of a vendor, Hansa Research Group, are among those arrested in the case.