News Broadcasting
Will Sanjivani be Star’s lifeline for 2002?
If a show takes up the time slot occupied earlier by the celebrated gameshow Kaun Banega Crorepati, it better be BIG! That seems to be the line that Star Plus has taken by pulling out all stops to ensure that its new weekly soap Sanjivani grabs eyeballs in a big way.
The one-hour show, produced by Cinevista Communications, and airing 9 – 10 pm on Wednesdays, is definitely not cutting any corners in scale or concept. Spread out over 18,000 square feet of space in a suburban studio is a permanent hospital set that has taken over Rs 10 million to put up. The standard betacam has been given the go-by; the entire filming and editing is done digitally. The cost of digital beta filming is four times that of the betacam (which hovers around Rs 3000 per episode) and the resultant picture quality 20 times better. Each episode of the series that explores the human side of hospital life costs over Rs 1 million to produce, avers Cinevista creative director Siddharth.
Set designer Omung Kumar has created a hospital set that is stylish, colourful and very hip – very unlike a hospital, but one with a ‘hopeful feel’, says director Kaushik Ghatak (because it is loosely based on Chicago Hope?). A veteran of such hit serials like Kyunkii and ShhhKoi Hai, Ghatak says Sanjivani has the potential to tap a variety of emotions and relationships in the wider canvas of hospital life. Authenticity has been maintained to the last detail in buying original operating and scanning equipment and infrastructure worth millions. Cinevista has also retained a panel of around eight doctors who advise the crew on medical terms and shots. Ghatak says the team spent eight months of research on assimilating 800 case files from various hospitals to ensure that the incidents portrayed have a ring of truth to them.
And for some star appeal, middle-rung Bollywood actor Mohnish Behl has been signed on for a central character in the serial.
Star Plus too is ensuring that the investment in the series fetches due returns. Hoardings and innovative front and back page advertisements in major English and regional language newspapers marked the launch of the serial. The channel tried another innovative promotion – distributing Band-Aid medicated strips in local trains in Mumbai on launch day (yesterday), stamped with the Sanjivani logo to get the medicine message across.
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.
