News Broadcasting
M&E industry must ensure self-classification under IT Rules 2021 happens in right spirit: Vikram Sahay
Mumbai: It is the responsibility of everyone in the media and entertainment (M&E) industry to ensure self-classification of content happens in the “right spirit” under the Digital Media Ethics Code, said the ministry of information and broadcasting joint secretary Vikram Sahay on Tuesday.
Sahay was addressing the Pixels digital entertainment conference organised by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI).
“Consumers are curious whether the self-classification rule will be able to maintain the level of seriousness and discipline in content creation,” said Sahay. “We are of the view that the content creators and producers are mature enough and have accepted it in the right spirit. There should not be any cause of grievances on account of the fact that it is self-classification rather than pre-certification.”
“We are in consultation with IAMAI for quite long, essentially in the area of content regulation and IAMAI has played a very important role in putting all the OTT players together and trying to develop a commonality of ideas and interests and that has helped us in trying to come out with Digital Media Ethics Code which was notified in February this year,” he further added.
The Digital Media Ethics Code was notified in the month of February this year. The rules prescribed a framework to empower consumers to make informed viewing choices and also put in place a tiered grievance redressal mechanism.
Sahay observed that the digital entertainment sector has witnessed phenomenal growth and has been a source of direct and indirect employment.
The virtual conference Pixels deliberates upon the business and technology side of the digital entertainment sector with respect to OTT platforms, production houses, and content distributors.
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.
