News Broadcasting
CNN-IBN & IBN7 score big with World Cup contests
MUMBAI: Throughout the duration of the Cricket World Cup, CNN-IBN & IBN7 brought a delectable fare of coverage on the tournament. The channels launched a series of contests that allowed both advertisers and viewers to take centre stage. Specifically, advertisers are being offered an exclusive opportunity to dine and interact with such legends of the game as – Kris Srikanth, Ricky Ponting, Zaheer Abbas, Chris Harris and Kiran More.
Additionally, CNN-IBN & IBN7 have also launched Cup Quiz With Cheeka and #Cricfie. Cup Quiz With Cheeka is a cricket quiz on-air and on social media wherein participants need to answer questions related to past cricket world cups, asked by the former India captain and chairman of selectors Srikanth.
#Cricfie is a contest running on IBN7 wherein the channel is calling for selfies with quirky captions wishing and cheering for Team India to be shared on Facebook page or the Twitter handle of IBN7. The top Cricfies will be printed, framed and sent back to participants duly autographed by the channel’s panel of experts.
While the extensive programming providing viewers with a 360 degree view of this mega cricketing event will continue till the end, CNN-IBN & IBN7’s special viewer and trade engagement activities will add another dimension to its coverage.
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.
