News Broadcasting
Distribution hitches delay Sahara’s NCR news channel launch
MUMBAI: This time round Sahara is not taking any chances with a new product. In a bid to have its distribution strategy in place before launch, Sahara India Media & Entertainment’s (SIME) proposed NCR channel has been delayed till next month.
The National Capital Region (NCR) channel, which was conceived under the project name D1, has been given a formal name Sahara Samay NCR.
Confirming the development, a company source said, “The launch has been delayed as we are making sure that the channel would be available on tunable, if not prime, band in the NCR.”
With increasing number of channels being introduced via cable compounding the problem of low availability of bandwidth, service providers are finding it difficult to have all the channels on the tunable band. In India, prime
band is considered that bandwidth where approximately 12-15 channels could be accessed by a black & white TV set, while those channels that can be accessed by an average TV set, are said to be tunable. At present, over 400 pay and free to air channels could be accessed in India.
Sahara sources also added that distribution head Tapas Roy, an import from Siti Cable, was concentrating on Sahara Rashtriya and Sahara Mumbai as the respective channels had got shifted out of the tunable band and,
hence, was unable to devote full time on the proposed channel.
However, the NCR channel is being test beamed and is available on 28-odd headends in Delhi and the neighbouring areas, even as programming details are being a final shape along with additional broadcast equipment that would be necessary to make the channel really live, interactive and lively.
Explaining that Sahara does not want to take chances with a new channel, unlike the existing ones from the stable that had faced distribution problems resulting in low visibility, the sources added that the company’s distribution team too is being beefed up country-wide in the wake of a few exits.
In recent times, there have been several departures from Sahara’s distribution team, including Raj Mohan, who used to look after the distribution activities for south and western India region. Mohan has joined as head of distribution for TV Today Network after Amitabh Srivastava upped and shook hands with the little Big Mouse.
SIME is also not averse to follow “certain market norms” relating to placement of channels on cable networks and, company sources admitted, package deals were being worked out with cable operators.
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.
