News Broadcasting
Times lifestyle channel Zoom launched
MUMBAI: The Times Group’s non-fiction entertainment and lifestyle channel Zoom officially began beaming as of today.
Expectedly, the full weight of the Times Group’s media properties (the print publications in particular) were brought into the action to get the message across. For the outdoors, the message changed from teaser messages to announcing the channel’s arrival. The multimedia marketing blitz” has every media vehicle except television in its ambit.
Throughout the “launch month”, the intensity of the marketing efforts, which has already created quite a buzz among the trade, will be maintained, say channel executives.
While it is unclear as to how far the distribution has kicked in as yet, channel executives say efforts are on to make it available in all key markets over the next few days.
Zoom’s launch marks the first major channel launch in the Hindi entertainment space after Sahara TV in 2000. Zoom is the first of a number of marquee entries on Indian television that is expected to roll out over the next six months of which the most eagerly anticipated is Star India’s premium Hindi entertainment channel StarOne. The “Star World in Hindi” is expected to go on air around the Diwali festive season (October-November). Also in the pipeline, is Discovery’s lifestyle channel, which too is looking at a Diwali entry.
Before that, however, there is UTV’s kids channel Hungama which is launching next Sunday (26 September).
Zoom, which is the first of the four “premium, unique niche channels” that the Times stable expects to launch over the next 12 to 15 months, started its test feed on 10 September. Actual programmes were introduced into the test feed from 16 September.
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.
