News Broadcasting
Vijay TV gets up, close and personal with stars
MUMBAI: Seems like the Pongal special really went well with the audience. So much so that Vijay is spin off a show from one of the segments in the festival special.
Taking a cue from the Pongal specialVijay Udan Oru naal aired on 15 January 2004, where the cameras followed Tamil star Illayathalapathy Vijay as he had his breakfast, travelled to the shoot, worked on the set and spent some time with his family, the Tamil entertainment channel will be airing Star Udan Oru Naal every Sunday on 9:30 am.
Starting this Sunday 15 February, an hour long weekly SUON will feature a day in the life of an high profile celebrity. The channel will be trailing the chosen star for the best part of the day.
Audience can witness what the star does from dawn to dusk. The channel has lined up a list of actors, directors , music dirctors from the silver screen and the television as its guest of honour. The list included likes of Vijay, Vikram, Silambarasan, Sneha, and Trisha.
While the audience might have seen the stars laughing, crying and playing roles, but with this venture, Star’s Tamil entertainment arm gives the audience an opportunity to get close to stars from the tinsel world and discover the real person behind the screen persona.
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.
