News Broadcasting
Aditya Raj Kaul joins NDTV as senior executive editor for geopolitics and security
NEW DELHI: NDTV has named Aditya Raj Kaul senior executive editor for geopolitics, national security and strategic affairs at NDTV 24×7, bolstering its newsroom with one of India’s most seasoned voices on foreign policy and defence.
Kaul wasted no time settling in. On his very first day, he was filing dispatches from Tianjin, China, where Narendra Modi, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin gathered for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit.
With more than 15 years in frontline journalism, Kaul has reported from some of the world’s most volatile flashpoints — the India-China standoff in Ladakh, the abrogation of Article 370, the rise of ISIS in Iraq and Jordan, major terror strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and India’s first state visit to Israel and Palestine. He was the first journalist on the ground during the 2014 Kashmir floods and has tracked disasters from Uttarakhand to Chhattisgarh’s Maoist belt.
His international docket includes the G20 in Australia, Brics in China, Asean in Malaysia and Vietnam, and Saarc in Nepal, alongside high-level visits to the US, Germany and Israel. Along the way, he has secured exclusives with leaders such as S. Jaishankar, Amrullah Saleh, Tony Abbott and Benjamin Netanyahu.
An award-winning documentary maker, Kaul’s films include Airlift on India’s evacuation in Ukraine and Killed by the Taliban on the death of Danish Siddiqui. His work has earned the Golden DigiPub World Award, News Television Award, and the Ram Jethmalani Prize.
Rahul Kanwal, NDTV’s chief executive and editor-in-chief, hailed him as “among the finest in the field of strategic and international journalism,” adding that his presence in Tianjin on day one “shows his readiness and NDTV’s intent to be at the forefront of global stories.”
Kaul said he was “honoured to join NDTV at this important juncture,” pledging to bring “clarity and context to events that impact millions.”
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.
