News Broadcasting
Asia’s First Cross-Media Interactive TV Game Format introduced at Mipcom
MUMBAI: Robert Chua, producer of original television programming for the Asian marketplace and founder of The Interactive Channel (TIC), introduced Asia’s first cross-media interactive TV quiz/game format You Are History! at Mipcom 2006.
The Frapa registered show will soon launch on TIC. The one-hour game show is the first of its genre using TV and Internet pairing of contestants. The unique concept is to have two competing teams each consisting of one studio-based contestant and one home-based contestant interacting via webcam. Each team will answer general knowledge, ‘IQ’ and current affairs questions, solve puzzles and answer questions asked by a celebrity.
The studio-based contestant will be the team leader and decide who will be his/her partner, choosing from a number of home-based contestants. Along the one-hour show, the studio-based contestant or home-based contestants can decide whether to keep his/her partner or to ‘fire’ that person and choose a replacement.
Viewers can via SMS and the internet participate by predicting the winning team or the final scoring to win prizes.
“We’re excited to have created You Are History!, a very promising unique cross-media interactive TV program,” said Chairman and founder of The Interactive Channel Company Limited Robert Chua.
“You Are History! sees the convergence of broadcast TV, Internet and Telephony (SMS) and is available to international buyers who want to broadcast cross-media interactive TV shows generating SMS revenue and ratings. TIC provides the ideal technical support and software platform to integrate the internet, TV and SMS technologies,” added Chua.
Over the past decade, Chua has produced and launched such format hits as Everyone Wins, You Be The Judge and The Entrepreneur Show. TIC licenses its cross-media interactive technology as an enhancement to existing TV channels’ programs or to start an entire TV channel with program formats.
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.
