‘’Since 2017 and especially after the launch of Republic TV in May 2017, BCCL/ Times Network suspected large scale manipulation of ratings pertaining to illegal usage of multiple LCNs and out of EPG placement by Republic TV. We also found significant abnormalities in market wise ratings of that channel clearly indicating ground level tampering and/ or deliberate intervention at the raw data level to favour them. Times Network repeatedly complained about these irregularities to BARC for almost two years but got no resolution as the complaints routinely resulted in stock replies,” TN said.
The press statement of Joint Commissioner (Crimes) of Mumbai Police on December 25 last year as part of the ongoing investigation into the BARC TRP scam, made it clear that proof had been unearthed exposing manipulation by BARC officials for the benefit of Republic TV in 2017/18, the network said. As per BARC’s forensic audit of July 2020, as well as the multiple emails and WhatsApp chats of that period, which has now been accessed by Mumbai Police, it is now clear that Times Now's TRPs were indeed manually reduced by BARC officials headed by the then CEO, Partho Dasgupta and Romil Ramgarhia before publishing, with the intention to give undue advantage to Republic TV in the English news genre and thereby fraudulently declare Republic TV as No.1, even when Times Now was consistently higher by a large margin and was the undisputed leader of the Genre, it said.