Another TV rating scandal hits sector

İsmail Sağıroğlu ISTANBUL / Radikal

Confidence in TV ratings sector is faltering as an another TV ratings agency has failed to keep identities of its respondents a secret, an investigation reveals.

Turkey’s TV ratings sector is facing a new scandal as a fresh inspection reveals that TNS, the latest rating agency, may have failed to keep the names of its respondents a secret.

In December 2011, the Istanbul Üsküdar Prosecutor’s office launched a case against television rating agencies, finding that production companies had paid respondents to vote in favor of the television programs of their choice. The police raided AGB and several other production companies at the time, and the Turkish Television Viewing Research Committee (TİAK) ended its contract with AGB, to sign a new contract with TNS.

TNS received a list of 100,000 respondents from the Turkish Statistical Institute and outsourced the actual survey distribution to five different intermediary companies. TİAK then chose Marmara University to oversee that the respondent pool was chosen in a healthy fashion.

However, in its March-April report, Marmara University found that the respondents were not chosen in the appropriate fashion and that some respondents either did not complete or inaccurately answered the survey questions, or that their addresses did not match their profiles. The university also found that the surveys could have been leaked after being completed, and were not destroyed as required to protect confidentiality.