News Broadcasting
Aggregator launches TV over broadband(TVoBB) service
MUMBAI: Aggregator Limited has announced the launch of its first TV-over-Broadband (TVoBB) service, a Russian language portal that is set to change the TV viewing habits of over half a million Russians living in the UK.
MoëTV (pronounced ‘my-oar TV’ meaning ‘My TV’ in English) will go live later this month and will provide a collection of on-demand entertainment, drama, current affairs, films, documentaries, music and children’s programming.
MoëTV is a service which combines the speed of broadband and the best in Russian television with high quality pictures and sound. Aggregator has secured licences for programming from over 20 content suppliers including Amedia, Discovery Networks, Mosfilm, MTV Russia, National Geographic, nTV and RenTV.
Consumers interested in the service can pre-register by going to www.moe.tv and entering their email address. The service will offer around 400 hours of programming at launch, growing to an average of 1000 hours, refreshed monthly.
MoëTV has no mandatory subscription charges, meaning consumers can choose to obtain content on a per-view basis of 99p to £2.99 per programme or to view unlimited content for a £15.99 monthly payment.
All that the viewer needs to do to receive MoëTV is a broadband connection from any ISP and a PC or laptop. Programming can be viewed on the PC or the TV using a media extender. Aggregator has built a unique TVoBB content delivery platform, based on open standards technologies, to provide the viewer with a quality and easy to use service – for example MoëTV can schedule downloads so that users don’t exceed their ISP’s monthly download limits.
“The launch of this service will provide broadcast-quality television services to the 500,000 Russian speakers in the UK,” said Aggregator’s co-founder and Director of Programming, Chris Griffin.
“This is a well-educated, affluent community that has grown rapidly in the UK but is woefully underserved by mainstream television platforms. MoëTV can ensure that they, and their families, stay in touch with their language and culture while they are living abroad,” Griffin added.
MoëTV is the first in a series of planned service launches targeted at niche audiences from Aggregator, the brainchild of senior television industry figures Martin Goswami and Chris Griffin. Aggregator’s TVoBB services will create a new UK pay-TV platform, an on-demand broadband service that will deliver high-quality content to ethnic and special interest communities that are currently underserved by the television market.
“In order to be successful and provide consumers with exciting services they are prepared to pay for, new TV delivery platforms such as IPTV and TVoBB need differentiated content. We are excited about the potential of a fast growing broadband universe, so we have created services that work best in an IP based environment,” said Aggregator’s co-founder and CEO Martin Goswami.
“It seems that many operators currently planning IPTV services are targeting audiences who are already well-served on existing platforms. We’ve looked at that model and rejected it. What we’ve done instead is to develop packages of the best content available for specialist audiences who are not part of the mainstream pay-TV franchise,” added Goswami.
Aggregator is well advanced with a number of services aimed at underserved communities and interest groups. In 2007, the company plans to bring all these services together under a common platform brand incorporating the Freeview channels and PVR functionality.
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.
