News Broadcasting
13 foreign channels off the air in Bangladesh
MUMBAI: 13 television channels in Bangladesh are off the air. Cable operators had earlier switched off all foreign channels on 29 July to protest a government order.
Media reports indicate that on 24 July, the government stopped the airing of channels – ESPN, Star Sports, Ten Sports, Set Max, Zee Classic, Zee Action, Zee Trendz, Zee Premier, VH1, Zoom, HBO, Star One and Disney.
The Bangladeshi Satellite Cable Owners Association and Dhaka Cable Forum switched off all foreign TV channels on Saturday and went on strike in protest at the claim. Now they are airing all the channels except the 13 channels that are not allowed.
The Cable Operators Association of Bangladesh (Coab) said that distributors are unscrupulous as they download the pay channels without obtaining government permission.
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.
