News Broadcasting
Eutelsat to launch W5 satellite 16 November
PARIS: Eutelsat has announced that its W5 satellite is ready for launch by a Delta IV rocket developed by Boeing Expendable Launch Systems from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. The new satellite is set for lift-off on 16 November during a launch window that opens at 22.38 UTC and closes at 23.49 UTC.
After launch, W5 will be positioned at 70.5 degrees East, a key orbital position that presents Eutelsat with the opportunity to substantially reinforce its market presence in the whole of Asia in complement to the companys SESAT satellite.
Delivered to Eutelsat by Alcatel Space and equipped with 24 Ku-band transponders with 72 MHz bandwidth, W5 is configured with one fixed Widebeam covering western Europe, central Asia and the Indian sub-continent and two steerable spotbeams. The steerable spotbeams can cover north-east Asia including the whole of China and Mongolia as far as Korea and southern Japan, and south-east Asia as far as northern parts of Australia.
The launch will be broadcast in Europe in digital free-to-air on Eutelsats HOT BIRD 6 satellite via an uplink managed by Telespazio through its Fucino facilities (downlink frequency 11.179 GHz, horizontal polarisation, 27.5 Msymb/s, FEC, Channel ID 4901). A set of four specially built cameras have been attached to the outside and inside structures of the Delta IV booster in order to provide footage as it pulls away from earth through the outer limits of the atmosphere into space.
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.
