News Broadcasting
Aaj Tak CEO is Media Person of 2001
Aaj Tak, the 24-hour news channel, is reaping the rewards of the hard work put in the year gone by. Helped along by events that pushed news channels to the forefront, Aaj Tak claimed a 156 per cent increase in its viewership post 11 September.
As the year drew to a close, CEO G Krishnan bagged the Media Person of the Year Award for the year 2001 at the Media meet Award ceremony. Media Meet, the association of advertisers and media professionals, conferred the award upon him during its 7th Awards ceremony, held at Mumbai on 28 December.
Aaj Tak completed a year of operations on 31 December and claims to be the leading news channel with a channel-share of 53 per cent and a connectivity of more than 24 million households.
The same function saw the Media Planner of the Year 2001 award going to Jeffrey Crasto of Euro-RSCG Advertising.
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.
