News Broadcasting
Afro-Asian Games lend strength to India’s Commonwealth Games bid
NEW DELHI: Delhi’s bid team for the 2010 Commonwealth Games closely watched the progress of first r Afro-Asian Games which were held in Hyderabad. The final vote will be held in Jamaica next month.
Our staging of the Afro-Asian Games is similar to us hosting the first Asian Games in Delhi in 1951. The Games went onto become an integral and important part of the sporting calendar in the region. The Afro Asian Games aired on DD Sports.
The bid team will use the momentum they have gained over the past few months to take them through to Jamaica. The very favourable report from the CGF Evaluation Commission, combined with a clear sense of destiny are being used to bring the Games to India for the first time. India comprises over 50 per cent of the Commonwealth population.
Indian Olympic Association head and the head of the 2010 bidding team Suresh Kalmadi added, “India has always been at the forefront of using sport to break down boundaries while also creating new opportunities. ‘This approach of using sport to foster diversity and understanding amongst all nations and peoples is reflected in the key aspects of our bid where we are seeking to take the Commonwealth Games to new levels.
“We will have a higher level of focus on athlete needs and requirements, an expanded level of government commitment to staging the Games and making them a success, and a greater level of commercial opportunities for Commonwealth Games Associations and for the Commonwealth Games movement as a whole.”
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.
