News Broadcasting
Middle East Television to launch first Indian satellite channel from Dubai
MUMBAI: Dubai-based Middle East Television (MET), a sister concern of the Dubai-based IT company Alan Media, will launch the first Indian language satellite channel to be beamed from the Dubai Media City (DMC) from November.
The 24-hour free-to-air digital satellite Malayalee channel has been scheduled for a 1 November launch to coincide with Kerala Day. The channel will have an initial investment of $20 million, and will be beamed down through Panamsat (PAS-10) satellite at 68.5 E, say agency reports.
The channel will focus on non-resident Keralites, their lifestyles and aspirations and will also have regular blocks of Hindi and other south Indian language programming, with shows being produced mainly in the UAE. Key advantages of the channel will be its vast reach (Middle East, Far East, Africa, Europe and Australia,) and also its multi language platform.
“MET will focus primarily on news-based as well as feature programmes. Innovation will be our strength, and we have lined up a lot of exciting and refreshing topics for telecast,” MET executive director Sudhir Kumar has been qouted saying in the Khaleej Times.
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.
