News Broadcasting
AFI to recognise ‘Desparate Houswives’, ‘Sopranos’
MUMBAI: It is awards season time for the American film and television industries. The American Film Institute (AFI) has chosen what it considers to be the best that television and film had to offer this year.
Its television programmes of the year included HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm which airs in India on Zee English and ABC’s Desperate Housewives. The show took ABC to second spot in the November sweepstakes.
The other winners included Fox’s Arrested Development, The Shield which airs in India on AXN and HBO’s The Sopranos which airs on Zee English in India.
Unlike other film or television awards, the AFI selections are made through a 13-person jury process in which scholars, artists, critics and AFI trustees discuss, debate and determine the most outstanding achievements of the year, as well as provide a detailed rationale for each selection. Two AFI juries — one for motion pictures and one for television — convened in Los Angeles for two days of deliberation.
AFI will honor the creative ensembles for each of the honorees at a luncheon on 14 January 2005, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles, California. The jury rationales for each selection will be revealed at this event. In fact three years ago when the AFI first announced their awards they had a ceremony in a bid to compete with the Golden Globes. However, after getting a lukewarm response the organisation decided to simply announce the winners.
As far as the best film list was concerned Martin Scorcese’s The Aviator which is considered by some to be the favourite to win the Best Picture Oscar in February was chosen by AFI as one of the top ten films of the year. Sony’s blockbuster Spiderman 2 also made the cut along with Collateral where Tom Cruise played a ruthless killer, the comedy classic Sideways which deals with wine tasters in California and the mind bender Eternal Sunshine Of the Spotless Mind.
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.
