News Broadcasting
Dan Rather to leave CBS News after four decades
MUMBAI: News veteran Dan Rather will leave US broadcaster CBS News after 44 years.
CBS News and Sports president Sean McManus said, “Of all the famous names associated with CBS News, the biggest and brightest on the marquee are Murrow, Cronkite and Rather. With the utmost respect, we mark the extraordinary and singular role Dan has played in writing the script of not only CBS News, but of broadcast journalism. There will always be a part of Dan Rather at CBS News. He is truly a ‘reporter’s reporter,’ and he has helped to train several generations of broadcast journalists. His legacy cannot be replicated.”
CBS president and CEO Leslie Moonves says, “For more than four decades, Dan Rather has approached the job of broadcast journalist with a singular passion, dedication and, always, an unwavering desire to tell the story to the American public. The unique mark he has left on his craft is indelible.”
CBS News is currently finalising plans for a primetime special on the newsman’s legendary career at CBS News. It is scheduled to be broadcast sometime this yea. CBS News also will make a contribution to Rather’s alma mater, now called Sam Houston State University.
Rather joined CBS News in 1962. He covered virtually every major event in the world for CBS News in the past 44 years. Rather regularly landed the biggest interviews with the world’s most important and compelling figures, from the famous to the infamous. CBS says that his passion for the news, for getting the story and for taking on the most challenging assignments in journalism is unmatchedsomething his competitors knew only too well–and he has dedicated himself to delivering to the American public coverage that is fair and accurate, no matter the size and scope of the story. Rather has interviewed every US president from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Bill Clinton and virtually every major international leader of the past 30 years. He landed two news-breaking interviews with Saddam Hussein. The first occurred in 1990 after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.
Then, in February 2003, with coalition forces poised to invade the country, Rather secured the most sought-after interview in the world, an exclusive one-on-one with Saddam in Baghdad, the first the Iraqi leader had conducted with a Western journalist since 1991. Rather and his team at 60 MINUTES II also broke, arguably, the biggest story of the year–the abuse of prisoners at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison–in April 2004.
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.
