News Broadcasting
DD Bangla, among other Bengali channels to live telecast Durga immersions
KOLKATA: India’s national broadcaster, Doordarshan is likely to live telecast Durga Visarjan (immersion of Goddess Durga) on DD Bangla from 6:15 pm today.
While other regional Bengali channels like 24 Ghanta, Akash Bangla, Star Ananda, Tara News, ETV Bangla, Channel 10, Ne Bangla and Kolkata TV among various other channels apart from covering news will live telecast the Durga Visarjan from Kolkata and other parts of West Bengal from noon till late evening.
Biswa Majumdar, editor-in-chief, Northeast Bangla (Ne Bangla), a Bengali language 24×7 news channel, said: “We will show live Visarjans from noon till late evening. Most of the channels would be busy in covering the immersion as most of the idols will be immersed today as tomorrow is Eid.”
Covering teary eyed devotees bidding an emotional farewell as idols of goddess Durga and her four children – Lakshmi, Saraswati, Ganesha and Kartik – be to immersed in ponds, lakes and rivers of West Bengal is a touching experience, said a cameraman.
We will invite singers in our studios. We will also go to some celebrity puja and be a part of their home experience, said another reporter.
Married women would be decked in the ritualistic red-and-white sarees marking the event with the customary “Sindoor Khela” or smearing each other and the idols with red vermillion to prepare the goddess and her clan for their long journey home, as dhaaks (traditional drums) plays in the background.
There will be festive look on the banks of the Ganges and other water bodies, with spirited chants of “Bolo Durga Mai Ki Jai” adding to the fervour.
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.
