MUMBAI: HANSA Research, which measures television rating points (TRP) on behalf of the Broadcast Audience Research Council, has served BARC a notice of withdrawal of services, effective July 30.
In a letter to Meterology Data Private Limited, a joint venture between BARC and TAM (Television Audience Measurement) India, Praveen Nijhara, CEO of HANSA Research, stated: “We assume you have finalised the new set of vendors for managing your panel homes and that we can now be relieved of our duties.
“In any event, kindly treat this as notice of withdrawal of our services to MDL/BARC. We would like to withdraw our service to MDL/BARC by July 30, 2021.”
The decision is a fallout from the TRP scam case, in which some former HANSA Research employees were arrested by the Mumbai police last year. The former employees were arrested for allegedly tampering with the bar-o-meters installed at certain households. The bar-o-meters keep a track of which channel is being watched and accordingly give TRP points. The channels get advertisements on the basis of these TRP points.
The Mumbai police in their chargesheet had alleged that the former HANSA employees fudged the ratings in exchange for money from certain channels.
Meanwhile, media reports quote MDPL sources as having said that HANSA and MDPL had mutually agreed to part ways and that MDPL is well-equipped and will continue to provide its services.
