TRP manipulation case: Mumbai Police summons Republic TV COO for second time

Mumbai: The Mumbai Police’s crime branch department has asked Republic TV chief operating officer Priya Mukherjee to appear before it on Tuesday in the television rating point manipulation case.

Mukherjee is being summoned for the second time in the case. This follows the arrest of her colleague Ghanshyam Singh, the channel’s distribution head, earlier this month.

On Friday, while seeking further custody of Singh, the police claimed in a city court that their investigation had revealed that certain cable operators were allegedly “paid” to show the news channel on more than one logical channel number on their cable networks to boost TRPs.

“The probe has indicated that the sanction for the same came from senior officials at the channel. Singh’s further custody is required to ascertain who these officials are,” the remand application read.

The court extended his police custody till November 16.

In an earlier statement released by the channel, it had termed the arrest of Singh as one “born out of pre-scripted vendetta instead of evidence and facts”. The channel has denied any wrongdoing.

Republic TV, Fakt Marathi, News Nation, Maha Movie and Box Cinema are being investigated for allegedly manipulating TRPs by bribing certain households to increase the viewership of their channels and programmes, according to the first information report in the case. “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,” it has said.

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.