Cable Distributor Ashish Choudhary Arrested By Mumbai Police For TRP Scam

The crime branch made its 11th arrest in the TRP manipulation scam on Wednesday: a Thane-based cable distributor. Ashish Choudhary, 50, allegedly facilitated payment of cash to households which were told to keep some TV channels on in a bid to inflate their viewership figures.
Wow, a music channel, is the latest to come under the scanner in the TRP scam, the others being Republic TV, Box Cinema, Fakt Marathi, News Nation and Maha Movie.
Choudhary who runs a cable distribution firm named Crystal Broadcast was remanded by a court to police custody till October 30. Choudhary is official distributor of News Nation. His advocate Ajay Dubey denied the charges.

Choudhary’s name cropped up during interrogation of Abhishek Kolawade who runs a marketing firm named Max Media. Police said they have found a money trail linking the channels under probe with Choudhary and Kolawade.

Police said Choudhary received payments from the channels for distribution to households where TRPs were being measured using bar-o-meters. Choudhary, in turn, paid around Rs 5 lakh every month to Kolawade for two years, police said. Kolawade was allegedly responsible for disbursing funds down the line to others running the scam.

In a remand application, police said suspects Dinesh Vishwakarma, Ramji Verma, Harish Patil and Abhishek have also admitted to taking money fromthe five channels to increase their TRP, which is a key parameter used by media houses to decide placement of ads.

Assistant inspector Sachin Waze said till now 46 statements have been recorded. There are some contradictions in statements of officials of Hansa Research and Broadcasting Audience Research Council or BARC, police said. Hansa was contracted by BARC to install bar-o-meters .

Meanwhile, police said more than 100 people have written to them complaining about channels indulging in TRP manipulation. These complaints are from Bihar, West Bengal, Delhi, Haryana, Karnataka, and they are mostly about multiple slots occupied by certain channels.

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