The Kerala High Court has allowed BARC India to go ahead with the new landing-page provision under the Television Ratings Policy 2026 by lifting the interim stay imposed in May.

With this order, BARC India can stop counting viewership generated through landing pages while calculating television ratings.

According to a BestMediaInfo report today,landing pages are the channels that automatically appear when viewers switch on their set-top boxes. Going forward, only channels that viewers actively select will be included in TV ratings.

The stay was removed after the Centre argued that the policy is aimed at making audience measurement more accurate.Automatic channel exposure does not reflect a viewer’s actual choice and should not influence TV ratings.

The court’s decision gives the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and BARC India the green signal to implement the revised ratings methodology.

BARC India had informed the court that it had already completed the required technical preparations and was ready to roll out the new system.

The order is likely to affect broadcasters as well as cable and DTH operators. Broadcasters have traditionally paid for landing-page placements because they helped improve channel visibility and ratings. Since such automatic exposure will no longer be counted, the commercial value of these placements could decline.

The legal dispute, however, is not over. The petition filed by the All India Digital Cable Federation (AIDCF) and DEN Networks challenging the validity of the landing-page provision will continue to be heard by the Kerala High Court.

The petitioners argue that the rule could hurt the business of cable and DTH operators by reducing the value of landing-page slots.

The Centre, on the other hand, maintains that the policy does not stop operators from offering landing-page placements but only changes how television viewership is measured to ensure ratings are based on genuine audience choice.