News Broadcasting
News Corp launches MySpace in Japan
MUMBAI: US media conglomerate News Corp has launched a Japanese-language version of its social networking site (SNS) MySpace. This marks MySpace’s first Asian entry.
Media reports state that News Corp has formed a 50:50 JV with Softbank to operate the site. The venture will initially offer services for personal computers. Later, people will be able to use mobile phones to post photos, write Web logs and download music.
Partial services are available on a trial basis at jp.myspace.com.
Reports add that while it is hard to predict how things will unfold , other attempts by foreign SNS’ to break into the Japanese market have not fared well. Softbank is a broadband services provider in Japan and earlier this year paid $15.6 billion to acquire Vodaphone’s Japanese mobile phone service.
Existing social networking sites in Japan – including Softbank subsidiary Yahoo Japan – have about 10 million users. Softbank has a 41 per cent stake in Yahoo Japan.
Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son was quoted in reports saying that his company would guide the new venture so that it met the requirements of Japanese users, while News Corp, which invested in MySpace through its Fox Interactive Media subsidiary, would provide the ‘formula’ for operating the Web site.
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.
