News Broadcasting
HC adjourns Sony case against Trai to 24 Jan
NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court bench hearing the case on the issue of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (Trai) constitutional standing to be a regulator today heard arguments by Sony Entertainment Television’s counsel, before adjourning it again to 18 January.
The crux of senior counsel Soli Sorabjee’s hour-long argument was around the previously stated position that broadcasters are not covered under the Telecom regulatory nor cable operator acts. Hence Trai is not in a position to eithwer fix tariff or issue any other regulations or orders.
The court had last December fixed the day for hearing this matter while stating that there would be no impact of the continued hearing on implementing Cas from the designated date: 31 December, 2006.
The petition by Sony is now the main petition being heard by the court. The earlier petitions by first Star (2005), and then Sony, are all being heard as part of this main petition.
Star had filed the orginal case in 2005 challenging the constitutional validity of Trai as a regulatory authority for broadcasters.
Since the very locus standi of Trai had been sought to be shown as unconstitutional by Star, automatically all its powers and orders were challenged, including the order of tariff freeze. Later, Sony had filed a seperate petition on the orders of 24 August and 31 August regarding Trai’s constitutional validity, its orders relating to price fixing under Cas regime at Rs 5 per pay channel, as well as its order on interconnection.
Trai had issued an order saying that signals to a cable operator or MSO could not be disconnected, whatever be the reason, by a broadcaster unless 21 days prior notice is issued.
On the price fixing at Rs 5, the court had asked Sony to appeal to TDSAT as that was a quantitative issue.
HC at the moment is only hearing the constitutional issue, which will continue on 24 January.
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.
