BARC Resumes Public Sharing of Weekly Viewership Reports After Trai Lashes Out

After Trai thundered down on the Broadcasters Audience Research Council (BARC), the council has finally resumed publishing weekly viewership data. After resuming its report, the BARC has put out data for week 13 of the period 23-26 March. The council had stopped sharing data publicly after Trai introduced the new tariff regime in India. Following that, the last report which was publicly available was the week six report, after which BARC did not resume its reporting. In this period, the council was only sharing reports with its subscribers. Last week, the regulator had directed the council to publish the missing reports for the period in between and then it also warned the BARC of appropriate action in case of non-compliance.

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BARC in Trai’s Crosshair After Breaching Some Parts of Trai Act

The telecom regulatory authority also asked BARC to explain why it should be spared any repercussions after it had breached some of the sections of the Trai act. In a revert from BARC, the council revealed that it had not stopped publishing its report but had merely stopped sharing them publicly since they were not likely to show the ground reality of the situation following the rollout of the new Trai tariff regime.

BARC India’s spokesperson said in this regard, “BARC India is a joint industry body, and operates under self-regulation model, in compliance with Ministry of I&B Guidelines. In the NTO transition period, due to distribution disruptions (which have been well documented in media reports), there is significant volatility in data.”