News Broadcasting
Arianespace readies for 5 July dual telecom satellite launch
Arianespace’s eighth mission of the year, a dual telecommunications satellite launch, will take place on 5 July.
A heavy-lift Ariane 5 will loft the dual telecommunications satellite payload on Flight 153 carrying the Stellat 5 and N-STAR c satellites, with liftoff set at the opening of a launch window that runs from 8:21 pm to 9:18 pm Kourou time. Stellat 5, according to Arianespace, will ride in the upper payload position on Arianespace’s heavy-lift Ariane 5, and will be released into geostationary transfer orbit first. It will be followed by N-STAR c, which is to be in the lower position.
The N-STAR c is optimised for a 10-year on-orbit life and will provide mobile telephony and data transfer services to Japan and its surrounding waters. The satellite was delivered to the Ariane Spaceport in French Guiana on 18 June and was immediately moved into the new S5 preparation complex, where it is being readied for flight. Built by a Lockheed Martin/Orbital team for Japan’s NTT DoCoMo, N-STAR c will operate in S-band frequencies from an orbital location at 136 degrees East longitude. It will have a launch mass of 1,625 kg., and the satellite is based on Orbital’s STAR-1 and STAR-2 standard platforms, says Arianespace.
The Stellat 5 payload for Flight 153 will be used by a joint-venture company called Stellat, which brings together France Telecom with EuropeStar. Positioned at 5 degrees West longitude, Stellat 5, which arrived in French Guiana in May, will support two-way broadband Internet access across much of Europe, and will offer a connectivity matrix between Europe, the east coasts of North and South America, Africa, the Middle East and significant swaths of near Asia. Stellat 5, says Arianespace, is based on the Alcatel Space Industries’ Spacebus 3000 B3 platform, and will have a launch mass of 4,100 kg.
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.
