News Broadcasting
75 per cent of US homes have access to the net: Nielsen
MUMBAI: Nearly 75 per cent or 204.3 million Americans have access to the Internet from home. The data was provided by Nielsen//NetRatings. The organisation measures and analyses the Internet audience.
Nielsen//NetRatings director of strategic analysis Kenneth Cassar said, “In just a handful of years, online access has managed to gain the type of traction that took other mediums decades to achieve.”
Nielsen//NetRatings also reported that women represent a higher proportion of Web surfers with 82 per cent or 34.6 million women between the ages of 35-54 accessing the Internet at home. Men in this age group posted an 80 per cent access penetration rate, accounting for nearly 32.4 million surfers. 72 per cent of females in the 25-34 age group are Web surfers, while 75.6 per cent of males in this age bracket have Internet access.
“Women make the majority of purchases and household decisions. So it is no surprise that they are utilising the Internet as a tool for daily living” Cassar added.
The Internet access penetration rates are based on the Nielsen//NetRatings February 2004 monthly enumeration study, collected through random-digit dial phone survey. Internet access penetration is defined as the per cent of people who have access to the Internet, but not necessarily logging online during a specific timeframe.
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.
