News Broadcasting
No strategic partner for Zee likely this fiscal
MUMBAI: Zee Telefilms’ plans to bring on a global media partner has been put on hold at least for the current financial.
AOL Time Warner which was seen as the most likely strategic partner, especially after Zee tied up last year with AOL subsidiary Turner International to jointly distribute each other’s and third-party channels, is not in the picture for the present anyway.
According to corporate affairs CEO Rajiv Garg, who spoke to CNBC India earlier in the day, the reasons were mainly tied to the turmoil that the global media behemoth was facing. Garg did say though that Zee could still tie up with some other company, or go back to AOL-TW at some later date if the company was able to sort out its problems.
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.
