Court closes money laundering case related to TRP scam
A special court closed the ED's money laundering case linked to alleged TRP manipulation by TV channels, clearing Republic TV and its editor.
MUMBAI: A special court designated under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on Saturday closed the money laundering case registered by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) related to the alleged manipulation of television rating points (TRP) by some TV and news channels. The court is expected to issue a detailed order today.
TRPs are calculated by counting the number of viewers watching a programme during a specific time slot. A higher TRP indicates that more people are watching the show.
The ED had alleged that there was a conspiracy between channel owners, agents and relationship managers to influence the houses to watch certain channels for monetary gains.
The alleged scam came to light in 2020 after the rating agency Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) filed a complaint with the Mumbai police, through Hansa Research Group, alleging that certain channels were rigging TRP to attract more advertisers.
In October 2020, the Kandivli police had registered the case after ratings agency Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) filed a complaint through Hansa Research Group, alleging that certain television channels were rigging TRP numbers.
Republic channel and its editor Arnab Goswami and some executives along with other TV channels were named as accused in the case.
Based on the police case, the ED undertook a money laundering probe and in September 2022 cleared Republic TV and R Bharat news channels and Goswami of the allegation of manipulating television rating points (TRP). The agency had, however, continued the probe against the other accused named by the Mumbai police.
In its prosecution complaint or the chargesheet filed in September 2022, ED named 16 accused, which included directors of Box Cinema, Fakt Marathi and Maha Movies channels and several relationship managers (RMs) employed by Hansa Research Group, a contractor employed by BARC.
In the chargesheet, the agency said that it has examined the role of Republic in detail, and it became evident that the investigation done by the Mumbai police was “at variance with the investigation done by the ED”.
ED listed some points on which they arrived at this conclusion. First, the ED said, raw data for panel households who were allegedly watching Republic TV (as per Mumbai police charge-sheet) was sought from BARC (Broadcast Audience Research Council, a joint industry company set up by stakeholders to manage television audience measurement systems.
“Analysis of viewership patterns of those households showed that these households were watching channels other than republic channels,” ED said in its chargesheet. Second, the central agency said, panel households denied having taken money for watching Republic TV or R Bharat channels. “Their statements corroborate with raw data maintained independently by BARC,” the ED added. Third, the agency said, in their statements, though the relationship managers (RMs) have stated that they have indulged in the practice of paying panel households, the TV channels have denied the allegation that they paid the households to watch Republic TV or R Bharat. Besides, the ED claimed, it had not found any “financial/fund trail” so far to connect payment of monies by Republic TV to any of the persons – RMs or households.
In June 2024, the Esplanade metropolitan magistrate court had allowed the state government’s plea to drop prosecution of all the accused named in the police case based on which the ED had started the money laundering probe.