News Broadcasting
James Murdoch appointed non-executive director at BSkyB
LONDON: Rupert Murdoch has strengthened the Murdoch family presence on the board of BSkyB by appointing his son non executive director.
30 year old James Murdoch is already a board member at News Corp., which owns 36 per cent of BSkyB, UK’s largest pay TV broadcaster. James is also chairman and chief executive of Star TV, News Corp’s Asian pay TV service and his father’s bridgehead into the potentially lucrative Chinese broadcasting market.
Media reports say the induction of James has resulted in the departure of Leslie Hinton, the executive chairman of Mr Murdoch’s News International newspapers, which include the Sun and the Times, from the BSkyB board. It may, reports indicate, infuriate BSkyB investors, a large group of which had voted against re-electing five non executives at last year’s annunal general meeting, in protest against the lack of genuine independent directors.
Martin Pompadur, head of News Corp’s European operations, has also quit the BSkyB board, say reports. Among fresh appointments to the BSkyB board announced today are Chase Carey, a non-executive director at News Corporation, and Lord Wilson of Ditton, former head of the home civil service.
Nine of the 16 board members of BSkyB are now independent non-executive directors.
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.
