In the context of television in India, three letters – TRP – has gained a rather dubious reputation over the years. Television Rating Points or TRP was often synonymous with a compromise in the quality of television content. However, since Mumbai Police’s press conference which named Republic TV as having tampered with TRP measurement system, the news has touched a raw nerve among the news channels. 

As the nation wanted to know what exactly the whole controversy was, primetime debates across channels had a variety of answers - a “scam”, “scandal”, “dhokha”, “cheating”, “saazish”, “fraud”,  “racket”, “chori” and “vishwaasghaat”. 

However, while Republic TV’s CFO S Sundaram skipped a summon by the police on Saturday citing a pending petition before the Supreme Court, news channels have framed this as an issue of one bad apple ruining the basket, media veterans explain why it is a much deeper issue pertaining to the entire news industry with political, social and economic implications.