In connection with the “Spiked TRP scam”, the Mumbai Police has issued a summon to the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Republic Media Network, Shiva Subramanium Sundaram, and heads of the two-leading media-buying agencies to appear before it on Saturday morning.
Republic TV is the biggest name to have emerged in the investigation and Sundaram is the first senior management official to be summoned from the TV network. Incidentally, it appears a climb down from Mumbai police which was suggesting that Arnab Goswami, owner of Republic TV, could himself be called by the police.
Apart from Republic TV, two other local Maharashtra’s channels named, Fakt Marathi and Box Cinema have also emerged in the scandal, and accountants of both of these channels have also been issued summons to join the investigation.
Milind Bharambe, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) mentioned that they have summoned Sundaram as there are reasonable grounds to believe that he is “acquainted with certain facts and circumstances of the matter and the same is required to be ascertained”
Police have already arrested four people from two smaller channels including owners of Fakt Marathi and Box Cinema.
Meanwhile, Republic TV has refuted all the allegations and has accused that Mumbai Police is being critical of their TV network because it had raised questions on their investigation related to late actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death.
Arnab Goswami, Editor-in-chief of the channel has said that he will sue Mumbai Police commissioner Param Bir Singh for the allegations as “not a single BARC (Broadcast Audience Research Council) report that mentioned Republic TV”. The people of India know the truth. BARC has not mentioned Republic in any complaint”.
According to the BARC reports, it was India Today who has allegedly made payments to Hansa Research Group, which calculates the TRP for BARC, to get high TRP.
