News Broadcasting
500,000 boost for BBC programmes in England
MUMBAI: BBC has announced an extra half million pound investment in regional independent television productions. The addtitional investment will be spent on a range of new programmes across all 11 BBC regions in England.
BBC English Regions controller Andy Griffee was quoted in an official release saying, “This additional funding is to be spent over the next five months. I hope it will be repeated in the 2004-2005 fiscal. This is a move aimed at building on two very successful years for the BBC’s regional television output. Budgets for content like Inside Out and The Politics Show have increased and now we want to extend our genre range even further. We want to do it almost exclusively with the independent sector across England.”
The new range of programmes includes Local Hero, which shows 40-minute profiles on famous regional personalities who have been chosen by local radio listeners and regional television news viewers. Griffee further anticipated that the additional investment would pay for up to 20 additional programmes each year.
“We will also be choosing particular regions to pilot exciting ideas including news archive based programmes and a number of entertainment, sport and arts ideas,” he said.
News Broadcasting
Book Cricket gets a digital century on News18 amid T20 fever
Nostalgic classroom game revamped in English, Hindi plus Telugu on web and app.
MUMBAI: When the T20 World Cup fever hits fever pitch, News18 decides to flip the script straight back to the classroom. The digital news platform has revived the timeless schoolyard favourite Book Cricket as an interactive online game, perfectly timed to ride the cricket wave gripping fans across the globe. The reimagined Book Cricket ditches textbooks for smartphones, blending old-school nostalgia with modern gameplay. Once a sneaky recess pastime played by flicking book pages to score runs, the digital version now offers seamless fun for anyone craving a quick cricket fix between overs.
Available in English, Hindi and Telugu (with more languages planned across News18’s network), the game sits within the platform’s fast-growing gaming portfolio of over 20 titles, all built in-house. It joins event-driven hits like ‘Kursi Catcher’ and ‘Result Rewind’ during the 2025 Bihar Assembly Elections, plus festive specials such as ‘Durga’s Astras’ for Durga Puja and ‘Mouse Modak’ for Ganesh Chaturthi.
News18 Digital CEO Mitul Sangani said, “Gaming is a key pillar of our engagement strategy. At News18, we uniquely combine our newsroom agility with immersive gaming experiences. By blending credible content with interactive formats, we are creating meaningful engagement in an era defined by shrinking attention spans and evolving consumption habits.”
Select titles have expanded beyond News18.com to CNBC-TV18.com and Firstpost.com, reflecting the network’s push to deepen user interaction across platforms. The Book Cricket game is live now at https://www.news18.com/games/book-cricket/.
In a tournament where every boundary counts, News18’s digital Book Cricket proves the simplest games can still deliver the biggest smiles no syllabus required, just pure cricket joy one page-flip at a time.
