Zee rides the World Cup to its best ratings in eight years

MUMBAI: Football has just done for Zee Entertainment what eight years of trying could not. The broadcaster has hit a record network share of 20 per cent among urban Indian viewers aged 15 and above in week 24 of 2026, its strongest performance in roughly eight years, powered by a combination of a resilient entertainment slate and a sports channel barely out of nappies.

Unite8 Sports, the company’s newly launched sports bouquet, is doing the heavy lifting. Riding the ongoing FIFA World Cup 2026, the channel has pulled in 60 million fresh viewers and now ranks as the second-largest linear sports portfolio in the country. Live football, paired with language-specific commentary and dedicated expert analysis, has pushed Unite8 Sports 2 to the top spot among all English sports channels in India, a notable feat for a channel still finding its feet.

The numbers stack up impressively against the last comparable tournament too. Zee’s linear sports portfolio has logged a 17 per cent higher live reach than it managed during FIFA World Cup 2022 over the equivalent period, a gain the company is not shy about flagging as proof its sports bet is paying off. Across linear television, ZEE5 and social platforms combined, the sports portfolio has clocked a unique reach of more than 300 million viewers since 1st June, a milestone that lets the broadcaster credibly call itself a genuine multi-platform entertainment and sports destination rather than just a television channel with an app attached.

Bavesh Janavlekar, chief business officer for Unite8 Sports at Zee Entertainment, called the response to the tournament a defining moment in the company’s push to build a real sports business. The company, he said, is ramping up its programming to hold on to audiences even once the football stops, as the tournament moves into its decisive rounds.

Zee’s pitch going forward rests on this multi-screen momentum holding, with Unite8 Sports and ZEE5 both still climbing and viewers moving fluidly between linear television and digital without missing a beat. An eight-year ratings drought has just ended on the back of a football tournament the company does not even own outright, and if the back half of the World Cup delivers anything like this opening surge, Zee’s rivals have a genuine fight on their hands for the rest of the year.