TNI Bureau: In view of the controversy surrounding TRP ratings of TV channels, which hinted at a bigger scam, the BARC has decided to pause ratings of News Channels for up to 12 weeks.

However, ratings of other genre by State and language will continue.

BARC Board has asked its Technical Committee (Tech Comm) to review and augment the current standards of measuring and reporting the data of biche genres and improve their statistical robustness and to significantly hamper the potential attempts of infiltrating the panel homes.

This exercise would cover all Hindi, Regional, English News and Business News channels with immediate effect.

The Mumbai Police had recently unearthed the TRP Scam and named Republic TV, Fakt Marathi and Box Cinema. While owners of the other channels and former employees of Hansa Research (deployed by BARC) were arrested, summons were issued to the Republic TV management too.