News TV ratings after implementing recommendations of TRP Committee report, says I&B Minister Anurag Thakur

I&B Minister Anurag Thakur on Thursday said that the ratings for news channels would resume after implementation of the recommendations made by TRP Committee. He was speaking at News18 India’s flagship summit “Chaupal”.

Answering a question about the possibility of resuming ratings for the news channels, Thakur said, “Country knows what happened with the TRPs of news channels. Twice the CEOs of BARC India was changed. I&B Ministry had formed a TRP committee which submitted its report. Now, the industry bodies have submitted their responses on the recommendations made by the TRP committee. Our effort is to implement the recommendations at the earliest in order to resume the ratings for the news genre.”

The report prepared on January 4, 2021, by the committee headed by Prasar Bharati CEO Shashi Shekhar Vempati recommends “strengthening corporate governance and changes in the structure of BARC India”, “bolstering technical oversight of BARC India”, “Return Path Data (RPD)”, “curbing unhealthy business practices”, and “creating competition to BARC India”.

The industry bodies – AAAI, ISA, IBDF, NBDA and NBDF – have submitted their comments on the recommendations by November 30, 2021.

Responding to accusations that the government was curbing the freedom of media in the country, Thakur said, “It has been four months since I took over as the Minister and no channel can say that they got even a single call from me, let alone stopping anyone from saying anything.”

“Opposition, which curbed media’s independence during Emergency, will think like this. In all seriousness, I want to say that from 2014 till now, I don’t think there is any incidence where media was stopped from saying anything. We have been a staunch supporter of free press. We have fought against Emergency,” he added.

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