TRAI tells BARC to ‘immediately release’ viewership data on its website or face ‘immediate action’

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has pulled up the Broadcast Audience Research Council for not publishing rating and viewership data during the sector’s migration to the new tariff regime. TRAI also directed BRAC to “immediately release viewership data for the past weeks” on its website or face “immediate action for non-compliance”.

According to The Times of India, a source said TRAI had sent the “strongly-worded directive” to BARC asking it to furnish compliance by today. PTI accessed the directive, which said: “BARC India has modified its Fair and Permissible Usage Policy in February 14, 2019, even after being repeatedly asked by the authority to not stop publishing of rating data and viewership data on its website during the migration to new regulatory framework until and unless explicitly permitted by the authority and are thus, in contravention of the direction of the authority dated December 21, 2018 and January 14, 2019.”

The directive said BARC had “failed to furnish any cogent reason for not publishing the rating and viewership data” and “such action on part of BARC India reflects poorly on the creditworthiness of the data published by them”. It went on: “Now … The authority … Hereby directs Broadcast Audience Research Council to immediately release and publish viewership data for the week ending February 8, 2019 and weeks subsequent to it, on its website without any further delay and not to stop it in future also without explicit instruction/direction from the authority or Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.”

BARC is governed by provisions of the TRAI Act and needs to comply with orders and directives issued by both TRAI and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.