News Broadcasting
DD channels reached over 680 million viewers in 2021: MIB
Mumbai: Prasar Bharati, through its twin network of Doordarshan and All India Radio has reached millions of viewers in India and worldwide in 2021, according to a statement issued by the ministry of information and broadcasting (MIB) on Friday. Reaching more than 190 countries and 790 cities across the globe, Prasar Bharati’s NewsOnAir app clocked a listenership of over 214 million, it said.
In the year gone by, DD channels across the country together clocked a viewership of more than six billion, reaching over 680 million viewers to deliver content in various regional languages and dialects.
With audiences spanning across 190+ countries, more than 185 YouTube channels of Doordarshan and All India Radio together registered more than a billion views in 2021. Their watch time for the entire year was 94 million hours, said the statement.
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Other than general entertainment and news, the public broadcaster also delivered on its mandate of ensuring that Covid-19 awareness messages, free consultation with doctors, and important government guidelines reach every person in the remotest corners of the country.
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: 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.
