Partho Dasgupta, the accused, is the fifteenth individual to be arrested within the case
Mumbai:
Mumbai Police on Thursday arrested Partho Dasgupta, the previous CEO of TV rankings company BARC, in reference to the TRP rip-off case. Mr Dasgupta – the fifteenth individual to be arrested within the case thus far – was taken into custody from Raigad and might be produced in courtroom in the present day.
Final week the police additionally arrested the previous COO of the company – Romil Ramgarhia – from his residence in Mumbai’s Antop Hill neighbourhood. Mr Ramgarhia allegedly “offered secret and confidential data to sure TV channels to assist improve TRP (tv score factors).”
A senior police officer informed information company PTI that the authorities had additionally recovered WhatsApp chats between Mr Ramgarhia and the Director and CEO of ARG Outlier Media Non-public Restricted.
ARG Outlier Media Pvt Ltd owns the Republic Media community, whose CEO – Vikas Khanchandani – was arrested earlier this month. Mr Khanchandani was later granted bail. Republic’s Head of Distribution, Ghanshyam Singh, was arrested final month.
Republic TV anchor Arnab Goswami, who was arrested from his Mumbai residence final month in a separate case, is amongst senior figures from the community named in a charge sheet filed by Mumbai Police.
Republic TV, which is one in every of three channels being investigated, has denied allegations and accused Mumbai Police of a vendetta as a result of it questioned investigations into Sushant Rajput’s demise.
The case was filed in October after Nitin Deokar, an official of Hansa Analysis – an company that positioned the metres (that file TV viewership information) in pattern households – filed a grievance alleging the method was being manipulated.
On investigation Mumbai Police mentioned Republic TV – which claims the best rankings – was tweaking rankings to get excessive promoting charges by bribing the households wherein metres have been put in. The police mentioned they have been being paid Rs 400 to Rs 500 monthly to maintain sure channels on.
TRP – measured by recording viewership information in pattern households – is essential for attracting advertisers and enhancing revenues at TV channels.
In October, after the rip-off broke, BARC mentioned it might pause weekly ratings for news channels for 3 months to “assessment and increase the present requirements”.
With enter from PTI
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