News Broadcasting
15 August launch for Sahara Urdu news channel
MUMBAI: Sahara India Mass Communications, which manages a bouquet of news channels, is proposing to launch an Urdu news and information channel. The probable launch date: 15 August 2006, Indian Independence Day.
The 24-hour Urdu news and information channel is targeted at the100 million plus Urdu-speaking denizens spread out in various states all over India. The channel will be headed by Dr Aziz Burny who is also the editor of the Sahara Urdu daily – Roznama Rashtriya Sahara.
Says Burny: “The channel’s name has not been finalised as yet. As of now, we are toying with a name like Urdu Sahara. We are in the process of finalising the team. We hope to launch the channel by 15 August, once all the logistics are in place.”
There is just one major player – the Hyderabad based Enadu TV – which runs a 24 hour Urdu channel – ETV Urdu. Last year, pubcaster — Prasar Bharati also announced that it would launch an Urdu TV service.
Urdu Sahara will be entering a space which has been rough for players in the past. UTN and Falak TV are some of the Urdu news & infotainment channels which have ended up in the graveyard.
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.
