News Broadcasting
Afghanistan’s Kandahar TV makes tentative broadcast attempt
DELHI: It is broadcasting for only a couple of hours every evening but it’s a start. And for a country that has been wracked by war for as long as anyone can remember, it is having an impact.
Broadcasting in black and white out of the former stronghold of Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban regime is Kandahar Television, Reuters news agency reports. Hampered by a nonexistent budget, Kandahar TV’s few hours on air in the evenings includes a brief newscast, some public information, and recorded tapes from the Soviet rule in the 1980s.
There is a certain irony in the fact that these black and white images interspersed with scenes of the capital itself, its cars, buildings and bustling street life are eliciting nostalgia for Kabuls “golden days”.
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.
