News Broadcasting
Liliane Landor is BBC World Service news, current affairs editor
MUMBAI: BBC World Service has appointed Liliane Landor as its new editor for news and current affairs. She is responsible for all the BBC World Service News and Current Affairs programmes in English.
BBC Radio News Stephen Mitchell says, “Liliane has a great track record in World Service as well as the vision and experience to build on the success already achieved during Mary Hockaday’s tenure.”
Landor joined the BBC in 1990 – working for the BBC French Service after experience as an interpreter in Paris and as a print journalist. She had been Head of BBC World Service News and Current Affairs Programmes since 2002, and in 2004 spent six months as Head of the BBC Arabic Service.
More recently, she has played a key role in leading flagship news and current affairs programmes across BBC World Service – while also being part of the Creative Future for journalism team led by the BBC’s Deputy Director-General, Mark Byford.
Landor says, “I am delighted to have been offered the job and I’m very excited at the prospect of leading such an impressive department. It has a deep understanding of our huge and diverse audiences and has always delivered strong and creative journalism. The World Service is a special place to be and we’ll focus our energies on delivering value and quality to our audiences.”
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.
