News Broadcasting
Educational institutions to have own radio stations
NEW DELHI: India’s Union Cabinet yesterday approved a proposal to allow universities, technical institutes like the Indian Institutes of Technology and the business management schools like the Indian Institutes of Management to set up their own FM radio stations.
The proposal, as reported by indiantelevision a few months ago, allows such educational organisations as also residential schools to have FM radio stations of their own with a maximum range of five kilometres.
This, the government says, would allow educational institutes to reach out to their closed community in a better fashion and that too at not a very high cost. A typical such FM radio station project, including programming, would cost around Rs. 10,00,000.
Unlike in the privatisation of the FM radio sector where players bid for the licence in some cities of the country — at times going overboard and bidding too high — the universities and schools would not be needed to pay a licence fee
According to information and broadcasting minister Sushma Swaraj, here only a fee would have to be paid for the spectrum to the wireless planning co-ordinator. She also said that rules would be framed, but by and large the FM radio stations of educational institutes would be guided by the programming code of pubcaster All India Radio.
When contacted, a senior functionary of Delhi University, with affiliated colleges, spread all over the city, said such FM radio stations would prove to be of immense use to spread various news and information regarding the university, especially during admission and exam time.
News Broadcasting
News TV viewership jumps 33 per cent as West Asia war draws audiences
BARC Week 8 data shows news share rising to 8 per cent despite T20 World Cup
NEW DELHI:Â Even as individual television news channel ratings remain under a temporary pause, the genre itself is seeing a clear surge in audience attention.
According to the latest data from Broadcast Audience Research Council India, television news recorded a 33 per cent jump in genre share in Week 8 of 2026, covering February 28 to March 6.
The news genre accounted for 8 per cent of total television viewership during the week, up from 6 per cent the previous week. The spike in attention coincided with escalating geopolitical tensions involving the United States, Israel and Iran, which have kept global headlines firmly fixed on West Asia.
The rise is notable because it came at a time when cricket was dominating television screens. The high-stakes stages of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, including the Super 8 fixtures and semi-finals, were being broadcast during the same period.
Despite the cricket frenzy, viewers appeared to be toggling between sport and global affairs, boosting the overall share of news programming.
The surge in genre share comes even as the government has enforced a one-month pause on publishing ratings for individual news channels. The move followed regulatory scrutiny of the television ratings ecosystem.
While channel-level rankings remain temporarily out of sight, the genre-level data suggests that when global tensions escalate, audiences continue to turn to television news for real-time updates.
