Republic TV official, another accused get bail in TRP scam

A court here on Saturday grantedbail to Republic TVs western region distribution headGhanshyam Singh, arrested last month in the alleged TRP(Television Rating Points) rigging scam.

Singh, who is also assistant vice president atRepublic Media Network, had been arrested on November 10.

The sessions court also granted bail to VishalBhandari, a former employee of Hansa Research Agency, who hadbeen arrested on October 8 in the case.

The order was passed by judge D S Deshmukh.

The police began to probe the alleged scam afterratings agency Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC)filed a complaint through Hansa about rigging of TRP by somechannels.

BARC has engaged Hansa to install and maintainbarometers which record TV viewership data at samplehouseholds on which TRP is based. Advertising revenue ofchannels depends of the TRP numbers.

It was alleged that some of these families were beingbribed to tune into certain channels to ramp up their TRP.

In a charge sheet filed last week, the police allegedthat Bhandari, who was a relationship manager with Hansa, paidmoney to sample households to tune into Box Cinema, FaktMarathi, Maha Movie and Republic TV.

Republic TV had denied wrongdoing.

The police have arrested a total of 12 persons in thecase so far.

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