- More than ten Telugu TV News and Entertainment channels are involved in BARC ratings manipulation
- TV5, NTV, GEMINI TV, Studio N are indulged in massive ratings fraud
- Telugu360 team had conducted massive sting video operation visiting more than three hundred BARC metered homes in 10 districts, in two states
- Rating Manipulators are paying Rs 1000 Per month for news channel and Rs 2500 for Entertainment channels to each BARC metered household
- 1,000+ Crore Television advertisement market in Telugu states is taken for ride by manipulators
- Telugu360.com will be releasing more than 30 sting operation videos in next 24 hours
For the uninitiated, BARC was launched in 2015 as a number of media houses questioned the validity of TAM(then standard for TV ratings across India). Telugu360 sting operation across 300 BARC panel houses in Andhra pradesh and Telanagana reveals shocking facts about the magnitude of manipulation. It was an eye opener to get to know how the BARC panel households are manipulated and how the 20,000 cr Indian TV market is deceived.
Click here to watch all our sting operation videos on youtube channel
Modus Operandi :
* Meet a BARC / Hansa Employee at the headquarters. He shall provide the entire house hold addresses where BARC Empanelled households with TV viewership monitoring meters are located. It was a shocking eye opener, to get to know how the boxes are fixed and how the 20,000 cr Indian TV advertising market is decided or deceived depending on your point of view.
* Next step is meeting the house holds and convincing them to watch channels for a particular duration everyday. They also aware of what length of viewing a news or entertainment channel shall not a raise a flag in the ratings compiling system. They watch/switch channels as trained to do so. Initially the agents monitor the timings by calling the households on a daily basis.These tainted employees also know when the headquarters team might come for an inquiry and their modus operandi for investigation. These house holds are trained well to answer the questions of the investigating team.
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Some stunning proofs from our videos:
Venkata Rao from Gandarayi Village, Krishna list
- “I manage 15 households with BARC meters for BARC Employee. I get prior information two days before about the impending inspection and so I am able to train all the 15 household people to answer the possible questions in a confident manner. He took us to those houses and exhibited his training skills.”
https://youtu.be/2nJg0HLbkUI
Anjaneyulu family of Hyderabad
- “Gemini is paying Rs. 2000 to watch Boom Boom show. TV5 is paying Rs.1000 per month for watching 3 hrs,We shuffle TV5 and Studio N every hour”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNfWopMrqY0&feature=youtu.be
When Telugu360 team toured entire region of TS/AP market , visited the BARC empanelled households , they found that the viewing is starting at 5.30 am in the morning and the watching times are specified between news and entertainment channels by the local BARC employee.
Couple of households are suspicious about of truthfulness of the local BARC employee and say he must be taking the lions share of the money doled out by the TV channel and passing only a pittance to them. When we asked weather they can watch a channel for 500 rupees a month they rejected stating that Rs.1000 is the minimum amount they take from any TV channel.
All houses which are empanelled are very poor homes with people comprising of illiterate and semi literate households. They innocently tell you how much they are being paid by the local BARC person to watch a specified TV channel as he believes there is nothing wrong in getting paid to watch a channel and damage he is doing to the entire TV market. “We are helping TVs to increase readings. Pl check in the increase in readings and then you pay us” almost everyone in the panel home says this.
This sting operation reveals the “dark secret” in TV industry. As you can see in the series of videos, most of the channels are buying slots to manipulate the viewership. Thousands of crores of TV advertising industry revenue runs on BARC ratings and it is disturbing that these ratings are manipulated at will questioning the validity of ratings systems.
(For any additional information on this, please email to krishna@telugu360.com)
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