NBA welcomes BARC's suspension of weekly ratings, calls for 'complete overhaul' of system

The News Broadcasters Association (NBA) on Thursday appreciated the decision of the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) to temporary suspend weekly ratings of news channels, calling it a ‘bold step’.

Also read | BARC suspends news channels' weekly television ratings for three months

The NBA also urged the ratings agency to completely overhaul its systems for restoring the credibility of the information it collects.

Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) is a rating agency which gives media organizations and advertisers a richly-detailed view of “What India Watches”.

BARC releases weekly audience estimates for all the genre of television by state and language.

According to its website, BARC India also provides a suite of Insight products designed for Broadcasters, Advertisers and Agencies.

Earlier today, after the alleged fake Television Rating Points (TRP) scam, the BARC has stated that it intends to review and augment the current standards of measurement to improve on "statistical robustness", and the exercise will result in a "pause" in the weekly ratings for up to 12 weeks.

The exercise would cover all Hindi, Regional, English News and Business News channels with immediate effect, BARC said.

Welcoming the decision, the news broadcasters association said that compromised data is creating a false narrative. NBA is the premier association of private news and current affairs broadcasters.

(With inputs from agencies)