News Broadcasting
BBC will explore the history of British jazz
MUMBAI: Uk broadcaster BBC has announced that its channel BBC Four will have a three-part series on the history of jazz in the UK.
There will also be two innovative concerts from a high-profile all-Brit weekend of jazz at the Barbican.
Accompanied by a selection of jazz-related programmes the initiative Jazz Britannia takes the viewer on a musical, historical and educational journey through arguably one of the most important African-American art forms of the 20th Century.
Directed by Mike Connolly and Mark Cooper, and narrated by actor Terence Stamp Jazz Britannia begins on Friday 28 January and explores the plethora of styles, scenes and dogmas that define the term ‘British jazz’.
The series will feature music and interviews from dozens of key artists including founding fathers Ronnie Scott, Johnny Dankworth, Humphrey Lyttelton, Tubby Hayes, Chris Barber, Joe Harriott and Acker Bilk via DJ Gilles Peterson to modern day musicians Soweto Kinch, Jamie Cullum and Amy Winehouse.
Staying with the subject of jazz as had been reported earlier by Indiantelevision.com MTV India has teamed up with the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz in the US, Black Entertainment Television (Bet) Jazz and the US State Department for the 2005 India Jazz and Heritage Tour from 12-20 January in Mumbai.
One of the highlights will be an evening concert at the Gateway of India. In India the event will air on VH1 on 16 January.
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.
