News Broadcasting
9 Gold to start 9 pm-10 pm block with soaps, series
HFCL-Nine Broadcasting India Ltd is to complete the 7 pm to 10 pm programming block it had bid Rs 1,210 million for by starting to air a clutch of series and soaps between 9 pm and 10 pm cum 16 October on DD Metro, the government owned channel. The branded block called Nine Gold will additonally air sitcoms, dramas and two-hour movies by leading directors.
Amongst the new shows to be launched figure: Smriti, Patang, Mooch Nahin To Kuch Nahin, Chonch Ladi Re Chonch, Agar Tum Na Hoten, Hum bhit to Hain Tumarhe, Tedhe Medhe Sapney and Khaki.
The shows feature popular stars like Tom Alter, Salil Ankola, Bhagyashree, Rajesh Khera, Anju Mahendroo, Raghuveer Yadav, Benjamin Gilani and many more.
Nine Gold will additionally introduce ‘Directors Cut’, a series of two-hour movies featuring a variety of storylines, brought to the small screen by leading directors and scriptwriters like Saeed Mirza, Praveen Nischol, Tanuja Chandra, Pankaj Parasher and Aruna Raje.
According to both Ravina Raj Kohli CEO of HFCL-Nine Broadcasting and Prasar Bharti chief R.R. Shah, the earlier 7 pm to 9 pm block is doing very well, thank you. Kohli says that Nine Gold has managed to snare 23 of the top 50 programme slots in all centres in all TV homes across India, based on TAM Media’s TRPs during 17-23 September.
According to Shah, DD Metro is refurbishing itself and is to get new look courtesy from 14 November when a gaggle of new shows targeted at kids between 3 and 6 pm. This includes Teletubbies which is being brought to DD by the BBC.
Shah points out that DD is making a serious effort at ensuring better transmission of DD’s signal in Indian TV homes. The state-owned network is installing an additional 110 transmitters by next year to ensure that viewers in even the smallest towns can tune into the channel.
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.
