News Broadcasting
Rough Q2 for TV news firms
MUMBAI: News channels are badly bruised by an ad slump in the second quarter as monies have shifted to Hindi general entertainment and sports channels.
The turnover of most of the listed news companies has eroded in a quarter when other genres of broadcasting have gained in an improved advertising economy.
TV Today, which runs India’s most popular Hindi news channel Aaj Tak, has seen a 6.6 per cent revenue fall over the year-ago period due to lower inventory utilisation. NDTV’s second-quarter revenue from the news business also slipped 6.1 per cent.
“There is a growing concern that TV news business in India is going through a rough patch. The third quarter will see a significant recovery due to the festive season but we could be headed for a slow revenue growth for the sector in the backdrop of increasing commoditisation,” said a media analyst who has been tracking the sector.
TV Today’s consolidated Ebitda, in fact, turned negative for the first time in 24 quarters. Net loss stood at Rs 76 million.
“While revenue fell, staff and distribution expenses grew. Investments also went into Headlines Today and Tez for their revival. The third quarter will see a drastic improvement and TV Today will turn profitable again,” an analyst said.
For the TV broadcasting segment, TV Today posted a revenue of Rs 596.22 million and an operating loss of Rs 40.57 million. In the trailing quarter, the company had posted a revenue of Rs 641.39 million and an operating profit of Rs 49.05 million.
NDTV suffered from weak sales and posted a standalone Ebitda loss of Rs 233 million and net loss of Rs 343 million.
“It has been a bad quarter generally for everybody in the news business from a revenue perspective. There has been a shift in advertising from news to GECs and sports channels. In the earlier year, some stability had come into the market in the second quarter. But the good news is that there seems to be a strong recovery in the third quarter coinciding with the festive season,” said NDTV Group CEO KVL Narayan Rao.
TV18 improved its performance in the fiscal second-quarter but IBN18 Broadcast continues to post losses.
Zee News Ltd chief executive officer Barun Das feels the decision to stick to hard news has worked for the company. “It has not been one of the best quarters for TV news. But we have seen revenue growth. We have the advantage of having regional news channels in our network. Sticking to hard news has worked for us. On the Ebitda level, we have performed beyond our expectations in the first two quarters. We were expecting to be Ebitda negative but have turned positive,” he said.
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.
