Mumbai Police has arrested 3 more people for their alleged involvement in Television Rating Point (TRP) scam which held on Tuesday, October 20. One of the arrested individual was identified as Ramji Verma, who was Relationship Manager at Hansa Agency in 2013-14. It is known that Verma has given contact related to a leading private English news channel to Umesh Mishara. Another former employee of Hansa, Dinesh Vishwakarma, was arrested at Mumbai Airport after he returned from Mumbai. The police also recorded the statement of Ebixcash MD Milan Ganatra in connection with this case. Mumbai Police has arrested 8 people so far in connection with this case.
The TRP scam came to light when the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), filed a complaint in this regard through Hansa Research Group Pvt Ltd. In a press conference, Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh had informed that ratings by BARC, an organisation under the Ministry of Information and Broadcast, had been manipulated. The police said that sample houses, where barometers had been installed to monitor ratings, were paid to watch certain TV channels.
What is TRP: Television Rating Point or TRP is a metric used by TV channels to indicate the percentage of the target audience reached. Notably, it is a tool to judge which Television programmes are viewed the most and also indicates the viewers' choice and popularity of a particular channel. It gives us an index of the choice of the people and also the popularity of a particular channel. For calculation purpose, a device is attached to the TV set in a few thousand viewers for judging purpose.
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