The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting notified the ‘TV Ratings Policy 2026 – Guidelines for the Regulation of Television Rating Agencies’ on March 27, 2026, replacing guidelines that had governed television audience measurement in India since January 2014. In the intervening 12 years, how India watched television changed substantially, but the measurement framework did not keep pace.

The 2014 framework was designed around cable and DTH, set a net worth threshold of INR 20 crore for rating agencies, and made no provision for OTT platforms or connected TVs, which now account for a substantial share of viewing. In practice, that entry threshold likely contributed to BARC India remaining the only significant ratings body for most, if not all, of this period.

Conflict-of-interest provisions and governance requirements were modest, and there was no meaningful penalty structure for non-compliance. These gaps came under sharper scrutiny during the 2020 TRP manipulation controversy, which exposed the risks of having industry advertising decisions depend so heavily on a single ratings architecture.

The 2026 policy makes substantive adjustments. The net worth threshold has dropped to INR 5 crore, which at least creates the conditions for competition even if it does not guarantee it. At least half of a rating agency’s board must now be independent directors with no ties to broadcasters, advertisers, or agencies, and consultancy arrangements that could compromise neutrality are prohibited.

Measurement must be technology-neutral, covering cable, DTH, OTT, and connected TV screens within metered homes. Perhaps most consequentially, the landing page loophole is closed: viewership generated through default channel placement on DTH home screens can no longer be counted in ratings and must be disclosed to the agency.

A graded penalty structure, running from suspension to cancellation of registration, now backs all of this up.

What the new policy simultaneously does is vest the government with powers over rating agencies — a concept that had no precedent in the 2014 framework. The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) can, at its discretion, restrict a rating agency from operating in designated geographic areas on national security grounds.

The government can completely take over the services and network infrastructure of an agency. It can revoke, suspend, or terminate rating operations entirely, in situations characterised as involving national security, emergency, or war. Agencies must comply with any such directive immediately; failure to do so results in cancellation of registration and a 5-year disqualification. No compensation is payable in any of these scenarios, and no extension of the licence period is granted.

Further, registration is contingent on maintaining security clearance throughout an agency’s operational tenure. In the event clearance is withdrawn, registration is liable to be immediately terminated, and revocation of an individual’s security clearance obligates the agency to act, failing which it faces cancellation.

Agencies are also prohibited from transferring databases outside India unless permitted under applicable law, bringing the ratings ecosystem into alignment with the Government’s data localisation position.

The government’s thinking is that television ratings, given their convergence with digital data systems and cross-platform analytics, now constitute critical information infrastructure. What gives it practical weight is that these powers have already been used. On March 6 earlier this year, three weeks before the 2026 policy was notified, the Ministry directed Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India to suspend the publication of news channel ratings for four weeks, citing sensationalist coverage of the Israel-Iran conflict.

That order was issued under the older 2014 guidelines. The suspension was subsequently extended by a further four weeks. The 2026 policy, therefore, does not narrow these powers, but formalises and expands them.

This posturing is consistent with the direction India’s regulatory legislation has taken more broadly. The amendments to the IT Rules in October 2025, the Digital Personal Data Protection Rules and now the TV Ratings Policy 2026 share a common architecture: the government updates the substantive rules, consolidates oversight within the executive, and reserves to itself the right to intervene without notice, without compensation, and without recourse to an independent adjudicatory body.

The new TRP or TV Rating Points policy is not the most sweeping of these instruments, but it is the clearest illustration of what that architecture looks like when applied to a system whose credibility depends on its distance from the government whose content it is, in part, measuring.

(The authors of this article Kaushik Moitra is Partner & Practice Lead-Regulatory, IP & TMT and Karnika Vallabh is Counsel-Regulatory, IP & TMT at Bharucha & Partners, a law firm. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and Indianbroadcastingworld.com need not subscribe to them)