The Kalamassery police have registered a case against an official of the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) and the owner of Malayalam news channel Reporter for alleged forgery in channel rating.
The case was registered on Monday (December 1) based on a complaint filed by C. Unnikrishnan, senior vice president of 24 News, another Malayalam news channel.
Premnadh, senior manager, BARC, has been named as the first accused in the first information report (FIR), while the ‘owner of Reporter channel’ is arraigned as the second accused without mentioning any name. BARC is an industry body set up to review television audience viewership.
The FIR states that the first accused allegedly forged the rating data to project higher rating for the channel of the second accused and lower the points for the complainant’s channel since July 14, 2025. The first accused also allegedly handed over confidential data from rating metres to the second accused. The complainant alleged that the data forgery caused a loss of around ₹15 crore to his channel in terms of advertisement revenue, according to the FIR.
The accused have been charged under Section 316(2) (criminal breach of trust), Section 318 (cheating), and Section 340 (use of forged documents or electronic records) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
Published – December 03, 2025 12:18 am IST
