The Mumbai Crime Branch on Thursday arrested a former CEO of the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) from Pune in connection with the TRP scam. Partho Dasgupta, the accused, is the 15th person to be arrested in the case related to alleged rigging of Television Rating Points (TRP) by some TV channels.
Dasgupta was arrested by Crime Intelligence Unit (CIU) from the jurisdiction of the Rajgad police station in Pune district. He will be produced before a court on Friday, said the official. Earlier, the CIU had arrested former Chief Operating Officer (COO) of BARC Ramil Ramgarhia, among others.
Mumbai Police began the probe after the BARC, a rating agency, filed a complaint about the rigging of TRP by some channels. TRP, measured by recording viewership data at sample households, is crucial as it helps TV channels attract advertisers. It was alleged that some households were being bribed to tune into certain channels to ramp up their TRP.
