News Broadcasting
Soong leaves CNBC Asia for CNN Intl as anchor
MUMBAI: The latest addition to CNN Intl’s list of anchors and correspondents is Martin Soong. He will anchor the network’s news programmes produced out of CNN’s regional headquarters in Hong Kong and report from the territory and across the Asia Pacific region.
Soong commences his job from 1 April 2004. He joins CNN’s Asia-Pacific presenting team comprising Stan Grant, Veronica Pedrosa, Andrew Stevens and Kristie Lu Stout who are also based in Hong Kong anchoring the network’s prime-time daily news programmes. Soong joins CNN International from CNBC Asia where he spent four years as an anchor/news editor and previously six years as a supervising producer/anchor with Asia Business News (now CNBC Asia).
He began his full time journalistic career in 1983 with The Business Times in Singapore as a reporter, and then he worked for Singapore Broadcasting Corporation as a producer/anchor and The Straits Times as a correspondent.
CNN International in the Asia Pacific operates from a fully integrated digital newsroom in Hong Kong. The regional news hub produces and broadcasts 30 hours a week of programming, including News Biz Today, Asia Now and the chat show Talk Asia.
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.
