Press freedom is not only important for democracy, it is a democracy – Government directive Walter Cronkitethe for TV viewers of the Broadcast Audience Research Council (Barc) measurement agency on January 12 to immediately continue the TRP (television points) can have extensive consequences.
The Barc website stated the ranking to be ‘accurate, inclusive, transparent TV audience measurement system.
The ranking was stopped because of alleged manipulation by certain employees.
An announcer wants this serious problem handled before the ranking continues.
But the question is – has Barc able to convince the announcer that the problem has been fixed? When I wrote this, this industry was still waiting for the Barc report on what was wrong with the operation and effort to cover it with past leadership.
At a meeting with government officials on December 16, BARC CEO Nakula Chopra has requested information and service broadcasting (MIB) consider giving the body more time to get stakeholders on the board and then 10 weeks lead time to continue ranking.
But the ministry has rushed to this decision.
MIB has also directed broadcasting to release data in the past three months in a monthly format for correct trendy representation and has established a working group under the leadership of Prasar Bharati CEO Shashi Vempati to consider utilizing the ability to return data paths to use TRP services.
But the contract between the announcer and mainly (as in the barc) and therefore this is a dangerous precedent for various reasons.
In each case, the ranking has been suspended for one year after the line.
What has changed since then? There is an area of ​​five stakeholders here – news broadcasters, non-news broadcasers, advertisers, viewers, and say, the fifth one is the government.
There is no consensus between the broadcasters on continuing this ranking quickly.
Therefore, the main question requested.
Is a rush decision through without adequate preparation or even any consultation with stakeholders across the board? Is this one of the politics with elections in key countries only weeks? Does certain editors of the relatively new Hindi news channel push the view that doing this can provide the advantage to the ruling party message to seduce voters? Even though Barc may take time to continue ranking, broadcasters know they are being judged, so the fierce competition in the eyeball-to-eyeballs tends to change even more ferocious.
The quality of content on the news channel has been widely remained unchanged over the past year and continuing established programming formula.
The Shrillness content has subsided as a pursuit of rankings is no longer the only goal.
Ads are secured on past performance and brand strength.
Will this oblig on new developments in news channels to compete with each other and make content more divisive? Former Minister of I & B This government has advocated not having a rating for the news channel for this reason.
In interaction with me more than a decade ago, Baba Ramdev was explained by Trps as “Tatkalin Rashtra Patan” (instant destruction of the nation).
The prognosis is not wrong.
Will the contents of a strange news channel for anchor and another spokesperson? Will the issue that the polarization opinion of news coverage dominates once again? Is this a way to divide further Indian media and the rules are even more effective? Two other points that need to be taken into account.
One, legality of government directive.
I say it ties Barc.
Trai 2006 guidelines, implemented and received in 2008, stipulates that the government recognizes the rating agency and barc as a ranking license from MIB.
While Barc can challenge this, maybe then draw the event-causing notification from MIB.
Barc may also not want to do this for existential reasons.
Two, Barc will be very happy with this I & B order and may have built cases for it, because of the apprehensive income.
This is Win-Win for Barc and the government.
Meanwhile, budget political parties for digital channels in general and channel news in particular, are very large.
Will this size also help political masters get a better bid from the news channel? Will this lead a retrograde decision for more decisions that damage Democracy and Indian media fabric? The author is the founder of Exchange4Media and has become observers and commentators in Indian media