Can TV Revive as BARC Returns, Ad Cap Falls? What It Means

In recent times, the television industry has gone through its darkest phase —broadcasters, rating agencies, advertisers, TRAI, and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting have all been at each other’s throats. The principal cause was a data blackout triggered by the suspension of BARC’s weekly ratings. The rise of digital hasn’t helped either: India’s pay-TV subscriber base has fallen from 151 million in 2018 to around 111 million by 2024, with forecasts suggesting it could shrink further to 71–81 million homes by 2030 — even as the OTT user base has surged from roughly 400 million to over 600 million in the same window.

In contrast, August 2026 has brought two big reliefs on the governance front: the government has scrapped the 12-minute ad cap for television broadcasting, and BARC’s weekly ratings are likely to resume soon.

Will these major events sustain the television industry which is at its structural decline? Let’s find out.

This piece traces what led to the multiple suspensions of BARC’s ratings, the full timeline of the TRP scam, what stakeholders are now demanding, the technological drawbacks of BARC’s rating system, the TRAI-versus-broadcasters battle over ad limits, the government’s rationale for removing the per-clock-hour cap, and the potential impact of these changes as the festive season approaches.

What is BARC? What does it do?

Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) is India’s official television audience measurement agency. It was founded in 2010 and registered as an accredited rating agency in July 2015, under Policy Guidelines the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting had notified in January 2014. BARC is jointly owned by:

• Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) — 60%
• Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) — 20%
• Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) — 20%

It is the official body responsible for measuring and publishing television audience ratings and viewership data across the Indian television industry, using audio watermarking technology to track viewership. It also measures time-shifted viewing and simulcasts.

What is TRP? Who measures it, and how is it calculated?

TRP stands for Television Rating Points. It is a measurement metric that shows which television show is being watched more, on which channel, and at what time.

In India, several agencies are involved in TRP measurement, including INTAM, BARC, and DART. TRP can be calculated using three main technologies: People’s Meter, Picture Matching, and Audio Watermarking. Of these, audio watermarking is the one that is relevant for this blog.

Audio watermarking is the technique of embedding inaudible, machine-readable codes into audio content to identify specific programs or advertisements. These codes are undetectable to human listeners but allow the audio to be recognised, tracked, and authenticated by machines.

That is all for the basics required to understand this topic. The major segments start here.

What happened in the TRP scam?

Republic TV, an English News channel, within 1 week of its launch reached the first spot in BARC’s ratings, among its genre. It replaced Times Now, a long-standing industry leader. This rapid success was widely associated with the presence of Arnab Goswami (a former Times Now anchor) at Republic TV. At launch, the channel had also been involved in deals with cable and DTH operators to be set as the default “landing page,” ensuring the bar-o-meter recorded it as being watched the moment a viewer’s set switched on, even before they changed the channel.

In December 2018, TRAI published an 80-page consultation paper strongly criticising BARC, demanding that 50% of its boards should always consist of independent members with equal voting rights. BARC ignored most of these recommendations.

In August 2019, BARC introduced algorithms into its data validation process aimed at neutralising the impact of landing pages on viewership data, but this didn’t fully resolve the problem. Two months later, in October 2019, BARC’s first CEO, Partho Dasgupta, stepped down and was replaced by media veteran Sunil Lulla, in what was seen at the time as a routine leadership change. COO Romil Ramgarhia followed roughly nine months later, resigning effective July 31, 2020.

The scandal broke that October. BARC filed a complaint through its vendor, Hansa Research, alleging that certain channels were rigging TRP numbers. The complaint claimed that some households were being paid to keep their television sets tuned to specific channels regardless of whether anyone was actually watching. On October 8, 2020, Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh announced the first arrests, naming Republic TV, Fakt Marathi, and Box Cinema as channels under investigation. Hansa’s former relationship manager Vinay Tripathi was arrested days later, on October 12, becoming the fifth person taken into custody in the case.

On October 15, 2020, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting was summoned before a parliamentary standing committee over the scandal, where members described BARC’s ratings as “easily manipulated” and “not scientific.” That same day, BARC suspended ratings for individual news channels for 8-12 weeks, while continuing to release broader audience estimates by state and language for the news genre.

Amid the fallout, BARC’s leadership largely went silent, and only about a third of the staff came to the office, with others working from home. Mumbai Police went on to name four other channels beyond Republic TV as implicated: Fakt Marathi, Box Cinema, Maha Movie, and Wow Music, though BARC’s own disciplinary action appeared to focus elsewhere: it had filed 11 FIRs through its vendors across Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Assam, and its disciplinary committee heard 31 tampering cases, penalising 19 broadcasters.

The Maharashtra State government at that time found this case to be a blessing in disguise. Arnab Goswami was throwing some punches at them for a while regarding two cases: the lynching of sadhus at Palghar and the Sushant Singh Rajput case.

In December 2020, Mumbai Police named Dasgupta as the mastermind of the scandal, alleging in his remand application that he had used BARC’s measurement science and analytics division to manipulate TRPs. They stated that the former CEO allegedly altered the “outlier method” and “meta rules” so that human intervention, rather than the system’s automated safeguards, decided which channels’ data counted. Police also said the manipulation extended beyond news, alleging “evidence of similar forgery” in General Entertainment Channel (GEC) data.

A parallel case also surfaced around TV9 Bharatvarsh: in July 2020, the News Broadcasters Association filed a complaint with BARC accusing the Hindi news channel of TRP manipulation. NBA president Rajat Sharma and one of the rivals of the News Broadcasters Association also publicly called out TV9.

What Happened After the TRP Scam?

After the ratings were suspended, the industry fell into a strange scenario. The broadcasters were affected badly, as smaller and newly launched channels, which depended on ratings to pitch themselves to advertisers, had far less to fall back on — one regional news channel that launched just before the suspension reportedly went four months without any ad revenue at all, since it had no ratings history to show anyone. But the case was opposite for advertisers: according to TAM AdEx, television news ad volume actually rose 25% in January 2021 compared to the same month the year before, even four months into the suspension.

Some sources said that BARC’s board received a complaint about alleged fraud in the English news genre back in 2017, even before it was in the public domain. A police investigation broke it open in Dec 2020. One thing to notice is that Partho Dasgupta had already resigned before it became public.

In Feb 2021, the I&B ministry instructed BARC to not publish ratings until a government-appointed committee examining the system’s discrepancies had submitted its report.

The wait ended on Jan 13, 2022, when the ministry directed BARC to resume the ratings. The agency published its ratings on march 17th, 2022, on a four-week-rolling-average basis. The body worked through 2021 to make technical adjustments aimed at greater transparency. A level playing field was ensured for all channels within the BARC ecosystem with a single YUMI (analytics) login for access to the audience estimates.

But it didn’t work out well, as just before the ratings were to resume, NDTV opted out of BARC, saying that the body needed to “urgently clean up its act”. In Oct, 2020, ZEE left, citing issues with the landing page, followed by iTV Network, which said it had raised very serious concerns regarding the reliability of the ratings but that none of them had been addressed.

And as it was a lesser blow to BARC’s integrity, Hansa Research Group were also highlighted in the same year when the Enforcement Directorate filed a chargesheet over the alleged TRP scam.

The new average metrics obviously didn’t solve the problem, and they still hadn’t excluded the viewership triggered due to landing page placements.

During this period, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting published its first draft for amending the 2014 guidelines, and it focuses on who sits at the top of BARC and also leaves room for alternatives. Around this period of time, the ED allowed the Mumbai police to withdraw the TRP case and said they found no evidence against Republic TV.

On June 26, 2025, BARC drops the four-week rolling average basis and resumes its weekly ratings for all news genres.

On July 2, 2026, BARC had to go through a “regulatory hold” because BARC’s 10-year registration under the old framework had expired on July 27, 2025. The body was required to obtain a fresh license under the new Television Ratings Policy 2026, which had come into effect in March 2026

On November 7, 2025, the ministry proposed an extended draft that excludes any automatic viewership count and also excludes viewership count from booting, and now the broadcasters pleaded at the Delhi High Court regarding the fact that the landing page viewership is also a genuine viewership, but that didn’t make any difference.

On Dec 1, 2025, Kerala Television Federation filed a case complaint with regulatory authorities that A Malayalam channel allegedly paid ₹100 crore via cryptocurrency to a Mumbai-based BARC employee for advance ratings data access and manipulation — hiding the TRP spike behind landing page viewership.

On March 27, 2026, MIB published TV Rating Policy 2026, which includes the exclusion of landing page and boot-up viewership from ratings, tighter audits, expanded panel homes, BARC must re-register under the new framework, and Clause 14.2 effectively shuts BARC down until compliance.

Advertisers and broadcasters show concerns that the audit responsibility will lie with BARC, and despite the regulations regarding the disclosure of channel placement, there is still room for placing channels without the knowledge of BARC.

On May 22, 2026, AIDCF (All India Digital Cable Federation) and DEN Networks filed a case against the Union of India, TRAI and BARC in the Kerala HC. They objected specifically to Clause 5.4.1 of the TV Ratings Policy 2026, the clause that excluded landing page viewership from ratings. Their argument was that distributors like DEN Networks earn revenue by selling landing page slots to channels, and if landing page viewership is excluded from ratings, channels stop paying for landing page slots, which will give a direct hit to cable distributor revenue. Due to this, MIB halts all ratings until this case is resolved.

Since then, the industry has fallen under a data blackout phase, which has now become a real pain as the festive season in India is closing in and all the stakeholders are desperate for the data to come back.

The data blackout is coming to its end

I&B Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw met with industry bodies including IBDF, NBDA, and the Arnab Goswami-led NBDF to work through solutions for the landing-page deadlock that has kept BARC’s ratings suspended.

The proposals were as follows: removal of BARC’s self-declaration system and introduction of independent third-party monitoring of landing-page placements. TAM India and Chrome DM put themselves forward for this job. Vaishnaw is also said to have coincided with the need for strict penal provisions, including suspension or withholding of ratings for any broadcaster or cable operator caught attempting to manipulate placements or bypass the rules.

If adopted, these safeguards would likely be folded into an amendment of the TV Ratings Policy 2026. Broadcasters and the ministry’s policy both agreed on allowing BARC to resume ratings while it completes the rest of its compliance requirements. As of now, no final decision has been made; Vaishnaw will address the remaining issues directly and will only be satisfied when they are resolved.

Whatever the outcome, there is one thing for certain: the BARC ratings is something without which the industry can’t function.

The Technological Gaps Behind BARC’s Failures and Why Advertisers Still Want BARC to Return?

As the agency moves toward its biggest operational reset yet, it’s the right time to examine its biggest technological shortcomings.

One of the biggest drawbacks of the mechanism was that it was very easily manipulated when it came to niche genres or genres with small audience bases. Suppose there are 2000 metered homes in Mumbai, and the English News genre covers 0.8% of the market share, which becomes 8 metered homes. So if the data is leaked by someone from BARC, the Channel just has to influence only 8 homes, and it is more convenient than a Hindi or Marathi news genre, which will cover a larger share of the market.

The two major ways of data rigging:

• Landing Page: This feature enables a channel to appear on the screen when a television is turned on. It increases the reach and average watch time of a channel; it is even more effective for a channel when it lies in a niche genre.

• Multiple LCNs: Acquiring multiple LCNs provides a similar type of exposure. Suppose channel A appears on 201, 202 and 203, and a person is flipping over channels; the surfing viewer spends 12 sec each, then Channel A is awarded 36 seconds.

BARC assigns buttons to a specific age; when a person clicks that button, they know that a person from a specific age range is currently watching TV, and when it is clicked again, they consider that this person is now finished watching. Pankaj Krishna, cofounder and CEO of Chrome Data Analytics, said, “Current demographic profiling is incorrect, as it is an unrealistic expectation to get a sample to manually select the appropriate button on the remote to identify themselves and that too each time they watch TV – which in turn leads to inaccurate information. Respondents would conveniently press the All button or would not press any button at all, leading to wrong demographic profiling

The advertisers still want BARC to return

BARC has been involved in multiple controversies throughout its lifespan, and the recent events have struck hard at its integrity, but despite these humiliating events, there are some concrete reasons why advertisers still want the ratings to resume.

Connected TV is growing rapidly, and the current industry standards are below par to cope with this growth to estimate reach and exposure.

Advertisers have made a bold statement that trusting an imperfect and independent industry currency is far different from relying on data provided by the platforms receiving the advertising money.

One CEO said that if you are someone with a defined objective, specific audiences, performance campaigns and measurable conversions, digital performs extremely well for you, but the Brand Building for large traditional brands takes place on television only.

One of the major problems with the digital platforms is that when asked for gaps in expected performance and what is delivered, they give recommendations to either increase budgets or increase creatives, and when you fulfil these requirements, they appear again in the next month, and you find yourself at the exact same spot you were one month earlier.

The advertisers at a press conference said that they don’t have an option, and broadcasters seem to have been married to BARC.

The Removal of the 12-Minute Ad Cap

This story goes back to 2006, but here’s the short version.

TRAI vs. Broadcasters

On March 16, 2012, TRAI issued regulations regarding the limit on the duration of advertisements in a clock hour. It further clarified that television advertising could include up to 10 minutes of commercial advertising plus two minutes of self-promotion per hour. On 14 may, 2012, they came up with the Standards of Quality of Service (Duration of Advertisements in Television Channels) Regulations, 2012, which ensured the 12-min cap on television advertising. A draft amendment clarifying the clock-hour rule and broadcaster reporting requirements followed on August 27, 2012.

On March 22, 2013, TRAI issued an amendment to the advertising regulation act and agreed with the broadcasters, to gradually reduce the advertisement duration with the goal being the 12-min cap.

Broadcasters challenged the regulation in court, and on December 17, 2013, the Delhi High Court granted interim protection, restraining TRAI from taking coercive action against the petitioning broadcasters while the case remained pending.

That protection held for over a decade. On May 29, 2026, the Delhi High Court finally upheld the 12-minute cap, dismissing petitions from broadcasters, news channels, and regional networks, and ruling that TRAI had acted within its legal powers when it introduced the 10+2 limit back in 2013.

Then the final nail in the coffin came on 14th august, 2026, when the government announced that it was removing the 12-min ad cap altogether. The government said the decision was taken with keeping in mind that the no of channels has grown from 62 to over 900, and viewers have a lot of choices compared to the time when the law was enforced.

The Impact on the Industry — and on Cricket

These changes have given the television a solid chance of competing with digital platforms. Unlike TV, digital platforms were never bound by an ad cap. But the real question is whether television will be able to deliver the same value it has given to the advertisers over the last two decades. The revenue driven from subscriptions is negligible; the main cash cow for television broadcasters is the selling of ad-slots. Average human attention span is decreasing, and the eyeballs are moving towards digital platforms. If such trends continue into the future, the brand-building argument, which is turning the game towards the TV broadcasters, will become irrelevant.

The defects of the system are at ease, but they haven’t been completely eliminated. Whether the new mechanism meets the industry’s expectations is yet to be seen. And one thing that cannot be underestimated is the havoc created by the minority created by BARC. If something like this recurs, television could be left just as exposed, unless new players are allowed to enter, as the ministry has itself suggested. Every other industry runs on choice and competition. Television’s measurement layer still doesn’t.

Indian cricket, more than any other content category, depends on reach and exposure to justify its ad rates. Broadcasting has been the biggest problem for BCCI over the past 1-2 years. JioHotstar has reported that after the ban on RMG apps, it was finding it hard to attract buyers for the ad slots. A more real and trusted picture of the reach and exposure will make it easier for broadcasters and advertisers to come to an agreement.