News Broadcasting
Shinawatra Satellite orders Andrew Corp broadband products
MUMBAI:The US-based Andrew Corp is rejoicing in the Land of Siam. The reason: it has pocketed a $20 million plus contract from Shin Satellite Public Company (Shin Sat) which runs the Thaicom3 satellite. Andrew will be setting up a network of 18 earth station gateway systems throughout Australia, Asia, and New Zealand for ShinSat’s iPSTAR broadband satellite system.
The target period for commercial launch of the satellite system: end 2003 while the rollout is slated to start in mid-2003.
ShinSat’s iPSTAR satellite system is positioned as a provider of low cost, high capacity, direct-to-desktop, two-way broadband communications services across Asia, India, and Australia.
The services it will offer include: Broadband Internet access, mass broadband access service, virtual private networking over iPSTAR, video conferencing, and iPSTAR’s voice service. The iPSTAR network will be pushing for custom in Australia, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, India, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, Taiwan, Thailand, The Philippines, and Vietnam.
The configuration of each of the gateways, which will have its presence in various countries include: an Andrew 8.1-meter Ka- band (20-30 GHz) earth station, a Ku-band broadcast earth station (with a 7.6-meter antenna), and accessories.
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.
