News Broadcasting
TV Today Networks seeks FIPB clearance to induct foreign equity
TV Today Networks, promoter of leading Hindi news channel Aaj Tak, has applied to the foreign investment promotion board (FIPB) seeking permission to induct foreign equity, senior government sources revealed today.
GE Capital, the finance arm of General Electric, proposes to take a roughly 5 per cent stake in TV Today, which is why the FIPB application is being made, the sources say.
Efforts to get in touch with Aaj Tak CEO G Krishnan proved futile as he is abroad at the moment.
TV Today’s quest for fresh funds may well be linked to reports that that the group is planning to launch an English news channel before the year is out.
The success of Aaj Tak, which broke even in seven months of its launch on 1 January 2001 and made it to the top slot despite not having a first mover advantage would certainly make TV Today an attractive proposition for any prospective investor.
If reports that Aaj Tak is planning an English news channel prove true, it will enjoy first mover advantage as there is no purely English news channel broadcasting out of India at the moment. Prannoy Roy’s NDTV is also reportedly planning an English and Hindi news channel that will launch simultaneously immediately after its divorce with Star India is formalised in March 2003.
Of course, it may just be that TV Today is only looking for some serious money to buttress Aaj Tak as it girds to do battle with the new avatar that Star News will present to the world come 1 April 2003.
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.
