News Broadcasting
BBC Radio gets UK rights to India Pak series
MUMBAI: BBC Radio has announced that it will have live coverage and in depth analysis of India’s upcoming tour of Pakistan from next week.
BBC Asian Network has live commentary of the opening one-day international between the arch rivals. Regular updates and reports can be heard on BBC Radio Five Live. The three Test matches will be broadcast live on Five Live Sports Extra, with extensive reports on the Asian Network and Five Live with the remaining four one-day internationals being reported on both stations.
The BBCi sport website will have over-by-over updates for England’s matches against the West Indies. There will be analysis and reports from India’s tour of Pakistan with expert opinion from players past and present on both series. Both the Asian Network and Five Live will have complementary programming with news journalists reporting from the tour throughout the month.
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.
