News Broadcasting
Anti-CAS PIL hearing postponed till Friday
NEW DELHI: Delhi’s cable fraternity is breathing a sigh of relief following the postponement of a hearing on a public interest litigation (PIL) in a Delhi court till 19 December.
Now the industry has got time till Friday to chalk out a strategy on CAS (conditional access system).
The joint petition was filed yesterday by Consumer Coordination Council (CCC), a coalition of 50 consumer bodies and Consumer Online Foundation (COF) set up by lawyers.
The first hearing which was scheduled earlier today could not be heard by the court as the counsel for the petitioners was not fully prepared and had not arrived, sources said.
The petitioners have alleged that CAS, in its present form is anti-consumer, and that the government has not woven in proper safety measures for the people before mandating the law.
For example, there is no body or a platform that a consumer can approach if the cable operators don’t provide after-sales and maintenance services for the set-top boxes (STBs) sold to them for addressability.
Seeking a regulatory body like the Telecom Regulatory authority of India (TRAI) to be put in place before CAS is rolled out, the petitioners have said, “On a conservative estimate, CAS under implementation across the 40 million cable and satellite homes has been estimated to cost the consumers nearly Rs 160,000 million with no commensurate benefit to the consumers.”
TRAI has pleaded that the government had acted in a partisan manner by pointing out that “the Act (facilitating rollout of CAS), on the contrary, is unconstitutional, anti-consumer, a burden on the national exchequer and a colorable exercise of power by the respondent (the Union of India through the I&B ministry).”
Meanwhile, having woken up in the morning to this new twist in the tale, the multi-system and cable operators said that “vested interests” were trying to derail the CAS implementation process, something that was showing signs of picking up in South Delhi areas after a not-so-successful playout in Chennai.
The Delhi government’s entertainment tax department also released ads in the dailies today informing consumers about the ‘dos and don’ts of CAS’.
As stated earlier by indiantelevision.com, the cable ops also reiterated yesterday that consumers would continue getting entertainment channels like Star Plus, Sony and Zee TV as usual.
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.
