The Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) of India is an agency that keeps a check on which channel is being watched the most in the country, in a state, in a language, etc. For this purpose, the agency has installed meters in a few houses, and keeps a record of what channel a particular household is watching, and to what extent. Based on this, TRP ratings are released to the public, which determine the number 1 channel.
Having found out this technique, certain channels are said to have given money to those houses which have a meter connected to their TVs, and are said to have asked the inmates of the house to tune in to their channel and keep it playing for the entire day. This way, the TRP ratings of channels are being manipulated, which has now come to light.
Cases have been registered against channels like Republic TV and India Today, which have allegedly manipulated their TRP ratings to be the number 1 channel. Following this, many other channels have also come into light, for manipulating their TRP ratings.
As a result, BARC announced that it would not measure or publish any TRP ratings for any channel in any language in the country, for the next 3 months. In this time, BARC is said to come up with a new way to calculate TRP, one that could not be manipulated.