News Broadcasting
Max kicks off Champions Trophy promotions with Gully Cricket
MUMBAI: Movies and events channel Max is back with its flagship on-ground activity Gully Cricket. Launching on 7 September, the initiative will kick off the channel’s promotional activities around the big ticket cricket property ICC Champions Trophy.
Max brand ambassadors Mandira Bedi, Sameer Khan and the mascot Tiger Deewana will visit the cities of Hyderabad, Nagpur, Kolkata, Mangalore, Visakhapatnam, Coimbatore, Amritsar, Ahmedabad and Lucknow between September 7 and September 30, 2006 to take the cricket fever from the lofty stadiums to the dingy bylanes.
The fifth edition the Champions Trophy, which is being played in India for the first time, is scheduled for October 2006.
Commenting on the return of the promotional initiative, Max business head Albert Almeida said, “Cricket is not only for the select few rolling their arms and swinging their bats in the parks and fields. It is our national passion and there’s no greater fun than playing the game on the streets. And with our Max icons for company, I am sure Gully Cricket will make everyone go deewana all over again.”
Gully Cricket schedule
Nagpur 7 September
Kolkata 10 September
Mangalore 15 September
Visakhapatnam 17 September
Coimbatore 20 September
Amritsar 23 September
Ahmedabad 26 September
Hyderabad 28 September
Lucknow 30 September
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.
