Week after week every Thursday after the release of the BARC ratings, Arnab Goswami can be seen claiming the number one position for Republic TV in select markets and TG.
That’s fair because numbers don’t lie, except for the fact that the leadership is in a few select markets and TG.
The one who lies, week after week, is Goswami himself when he claims that the viewership of Republic TV is not inflated by the impact of landing pages while others buy viewership by spending crores on landing pages.
In the process, Goswami clearly insinuates that the viewership is available on sale, contrary to I&B Minister Anurag Thakur’s remarks regarding BARC ratings on Sunday at Lokmat National Media Conclave.
Moreover, Goswami also ends up lying and fooling everyone, including his viewers and the government, about the usage of landing pages.
Data regarding the availability of channels on landing pages on cable networks (headends) across the country sourced from various indicate otherwise.
According to the latest data, Goswami’s three channels – Republic TV, Republic Bharat and Republic Bangla – were allegedly present on 40 headends across 10 states.
Republic TV alone was found present on landing pages on 24 cable networks across the country - including three of the top 10 cable networks (MSOs).
The markets where Republic TV was present on landing pages include Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Delhi, Tamil Nau and Kerala.
In Karnataka alone, Republic TV was present on 11 headends (MSOs) - including one large MSO with over one million subscribers.
In Andhra Pradesh, Republic TV was present on two of the top five cable networks in the country while the other three were independent MSOs.
Similarly, Delhi’s three cable networks including one significantly large MSO, carried Republic TV on their landing pages.
The channel was also present on three headends in Tamil Nadu and two headends in Kerala.
However, Goswami has reduced the landing pages for his Hindi news channel Republic Bharat.
Republic Bharat continues to be on landing pages across 13 MSOs in Hindi-speaking markets - including UP, MP, Haryana and Bihar.
His Bangla channel, Republic Bangla, was present on two of the largest MSOs in West Bengal along with another independent MSO.