News Broadcasting
A blockbuster evening marks 21 years of ‘Aap Ki Adalat’
MUMBAI: India’s longest running television show ‘Aap Ki Adalat’ saw a gathering of icons including those from politics, sports, business and spirituality who came together to celebrate the 21 years of the show, with Rajat Sharma.
The attendee list sported names like President Pranab Mukherjee, PM Narendra Modi, Union ministers Arun Jaitley, Smriti Irani, Venkaiah Naidu, Suresh Prabhu, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Prakash Javadekar, Ram Vilas Paswan, Dharmendra Pradhan, Rajyavardhan Rathore and Najma Heptullah. BJP president Amit Shah, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and former LS Speaker P A Sangma also attended the event. Chief Ministers Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Vasundhara Raje Scindia, and Harish Rawat were also present.
The three Khans of Bollywood, Shah Rukh, Salman and Aamir, along with others like Anil Kapoor, Ajay Devgn, Hema Malini, Anupam Kher, Sonakshi Sinha, Shatrughan Sinha, Rani Mukerji and cricketer Gautam Gambhir also attended the celebration.
PM Narendra Modi talking on what makes Aap Ki Adalat so distinct and unfading observed, “In the 21 years of this show, nobody has been forced to reply, Rajat knows the art of extracting a reply through his sweet questioning. Another big quality of Rajat is that he uses his tongue sparingly in his show, but he uses his heart to the fullest. A clever mind works behind this.”
Anil Ambani, Gautam Adani, Hari Bharatia and Raj Kumar Dhoot were among the business tycoons who were present at the occasion. Other personalities who attended included noted Pakistani ghazal singer Ghulam Ali, Himesh Reshmiyya, Udit Narayan, Anu Malik, advertising guru and lyricist Prasoon Joshi, Rakhi Sawant, Dr. Naresh Trehan, Daler Mehdi, Sakshi Maharaj, Yogi Adityanath, Raju Srivastav, Shashi Sinha, and social activist Kiran Bedi.
Senior Congress leaders Kamal Nath, Sachin Pilot, Janardan Dwivedi, Salman Khurshid, Jagdish Tytler, Vijay Bahuguna, Rita Bahuguna, Renuka Chaudhary, Sushil Shinde, R K Dhawan, Dr. Karan Singh, JDU chief Sharad Yadav, RLD chief Ajit Singh, Amar Singh and Jaya Bachchan were also present at the event.
India TV chairman and editor in chief Rajat Sharma commented, “I am short of words to express how overwhelmed and humbled I feel right now. Over the last two decades I was simply focusing on doing my job right, I never expected the amount of affection and respect showered upon me by all including country’s topmost icons.”
“I am more than grateful to all and mostly to my viewers who have backed me all through as their advocate while I tried to amplify their voice with who mattered,” he added.
Speaking on the success of the mega event, India TV MD and CEO Ritu Dhawan observed, “When we first thought of marking the occasion, we always knew that this is going to be an industry benchmark, however I have no doubt now that our expectations have been hugely exceeded. This has been a truly superlative success & people will remember this for a very long time.”
Star Plus has also decided to be part of the celebrations. The event will be simulcast on both the channels – India TV and Star Plus on 7 December at 10 pm. Cineyug, a premier event management companies managed the show that was hosted by singer Sonu Nigam.
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.
