News Broadcasting
AIR to give voice training to IA air hostesses
NEW DELHI: If Doordarshan has the knack to be in the news, it is the turn of the low profile All India Radio to hog some limelight. AIR has got the mandate to train Indian Airlines air hostesses in the ways of effective speaking.
According to Prasar Bharati sources, the Staff Training Institute of All India Radio, located at Kingsway Camp, New Delhi, will conduct a five-day workshop on “Voice Culture Training” for the airhostesses of the Indian Airlines.
Fifteen mid-career airhostesses will participate in the programme.
The training programme will be inaugurated by KS Sarma, the chief executive of Prasar Bharati on 18 November. The course shall continue up to 22 November.
The course will have intensive sessions covering: presenter as a communicator, phonetics and diction, effective speaking, musicality of speech, so that the announcement sounds pleasing and melodious rather than putting off the passengers, stress management (yoga, etc) and communication management during crisis
The course will have practical exercises and games, lecture demonstrations, audio recording and evaluation and group exercises.
Prof Aruna Broota, professor of psychology, Delhi University and Prof Vaishna Narang, professor of linguistics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, will be the two outside experts. The home faculty comprises HC Verma and VK Banerjee.
This is the first time that the Staff Training Institute of AIR is offering training programmes to outside agencies. So far it had restricted itself to conducting induction and refresher training for the programme staff of All India Radio.
Depending upon the success of the venture, STI may undertake more such training for other organizations.
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.
