News Broadcasting
Post Percept, Aegis eyes acquisitions in India
MUMBAI: Close on the heels of the Aegis and Percept split, Aegis Group plc chief executive Robert Lerwill is drawing up expansion plans for the company in India which include acquisitions.
Carat, a media buying company, will be looking at local acquisitions, preferably with 100 per cent stake. He is also open to joint ventures with local companies”if that is the way forward in India.” Aegis bought out Percept’s 27 per cent stake in Carat India.
Aegis is also eyeing acquisitions in the digital space, Lerwill says. There is major growth potential in the digital media segment, which he believes is still underserved in India. Only 2-3 per cent of media usage lies in the digital space but this is likely to boom, he points out.
With Percept buying out Aegis’ 51 per cent in Posterscope India, Lerwil says the effort will be to first tap the internal clients for out of home business and then spread out. Percept will have to return the Posterscope brand, he adds.
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.
