News Broadcasting
10 million subscribers, CDM rules pay TV market in China
MUMBAI: China TV Media (CDM) claims to have notched a 100, 000 subscriber base mark within six months of its launch of its digital pay TV network in China.
An official release issued by the network claims a sweeping 95 per cent market share of China’s digital pay-TV market. China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) had given a green signal to proposals for digital pay-TV by five networks last year. CDM was the first one to launch the service on 9 August 2004.
CDM has so far signed contracts with more than 90 cable TV networks across the country with a total of 63.07 million subscribers, among whom some 490,000 are set-top box users.
The CDM network now runs 17 digital pay-TV channels, offering a wide range of programs including movies, music, sports, shopping, education, TV guide and even computer games.
Meanwhile communications provider PCCW has announced plans to set up a broadband pay-television joint venture on the mainland with the telecommunications company China Netcom Group.
The new joint venture will initially operate in larger cities in Netcom Group’s home markets in northern China, where most of its current broadband subscribers are based. The group is the dominant operator in Beijing and Tianjin.
China Netcom is hoping to transfer PCCW’s experience in broadband television into China to help it restore growth in its broadband operations, where it has seen revenue slip in recent years due to competition. The challenge for China Netcom will be to find ways to boost broadband average revenue per user (ARPU) by selling more value-added services,
Last month China Netcom and PCCW announced a strategic alliance to jointly develop their respective businesses in mainland China and internationally. China Netcom had agreed to pay approximately $1 bn in cash for a 20 per cent stake in PCCW
As a part of their pay TV venture PCCW will procure TV programming security and payment mechanisms, as well as investment in set-top-boxes and may own up to half of the venture when Beijing relaxes regulations in 2007.
However experts say that it will still take time for most of the Chinese television audience to get used to paying for any specific programmes they want to see.
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.
