News Broadcasting
NBC renews ‘The West Wing’ for 7th season
MUMBAI: The West Wing has been re-elected to a seventh term by NBC. The White House drama will return for the 2005-06 season. In India the show airs on Zee English.
NBC has also extended the hospital drama ER for two more years through the 2007-08 season. NBC Entertainment president Kevin Reilly said, “The continuing quality and popularity of these series make them the mainstays of our year-to-year schedules. Coupled with our innovative current development plans, we feel we have the right mix of returning and fresh, new breakout hits for a promising 2005-06 schedule.”
NBC has been facing a tough time of late. The February sweeps put it n fourth spot. The broadcaster states that ER is currently tied with The Apprentice 2 as NBC’s top-rated series among adults 18-49 and the season’s number six series overall. ER is averaging a 7.8 rating, 20 share among adults 18-49 and 16.5 million viewers overall for the season.
Even though it failed to make an impact on the ratings charts Joey the Friends spinoff with Matt LeBlanc, will return for a second season. Although The West Wing’s ratings have slipped, Reilly maintains that it continues to draw the kind of affluent audience sponsors want.
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.
