News Broadcasting
Former FM Yashwant Sinha to host ‘Captains of India’ on Zee Business
MUMBAI: Zee Business has roped in former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha to anchor a programme Captains of India on the upcoming union budget. Sinha is an expert who has made the budget five times during his tenure.
The show, which begins on 21 February, will have Sinha playing host to interview personalities, like Sunil Kant Munjal, Nimesh Kampani, Sunil Bharti Mittal, Ashvin Dani, Ajay Piramal and Anil Aggarwal, who influence India Incorporation and will also look at their wishlist from the budget.
Commenting on the occasion, Zee director Newsgroup Laxmi N Goel said, “Union Budget is related to each and every individual of this country. I am glad that Zee Business has chosen a person who made the budget in the past. As an expert he will reveal all the aspects of this union budget relevant to our viewers.”
Captains of India will showcase a five-part series which will be shown over five days (21 to 25 February at 8:30 pm and 10:30 pm). The show will stress on the financial implication of the union budget on various classes of the society.
Captains of India will also be aired on Zee News.
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.
