News Broadcasting
US Justice Dept drops case against News Corp in phone-hacking scandal
MUMBAI: Rupert Murdoch’s company News Corp will not be prosecuted in the US over the phone-hacking scandal that the company was involved in the UK.
An enquiry was made into whether the alleged payments to the British police by News Corp journalists meant that the company broke anti-corruption laws in the US.
However, the US Department of Justice has said that it was not pursuing charges and was closing its investigation.
In a joint statement issued by 21st Century Fox and News Corp; News Corp general counsel and 21st Century Fox senior executive vice president and group general counsel, chief compliance officer Gerson Zweifach said, “21st Century Fox and News Corp have been notified by the United States Department of Justice that it has completed its investigation of voicemail interception and payments to public officials in London, and is declining to prosecute either company. We are grateful that this matter has been concluded and acknowledge the fairness and professionalism of the Department of Justice throughout this investigation.”
News Corp’s tabloid newspaper in the UK, News of the World closed down in 2011 after the scandal broke.
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: 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.
