News Broadcasting
AT&T set to buy BellSouth for $67 billion
MUMBAI: In a move that would make it the telecommunication superpower of the US, AT&T Corporation will buy out BellSouth Corporation for $67 billion.
Apart from acquiring business of nearly 70 million local phone customers, the merger will also get AT&T the ownership of US cell phone major Cingular Wireless. As of now, Cingular is jointly owned by AT&T and BellSouth. The purchase would also help AT&T to fight Comcast and other cable television companies that are entering the telecom business.
AT&T is presently the largest phone company in the US, while BellSouth, which operates in a nine-state region in the Southeast, is third behind Verizon Communications. The dream combination of AT&T-BellSouth would have $130 billion in sales and serve residential customers in 22 states.
According to a New York Times report, under the terms of the deal, shareholders of BellSouth will receive 1.325 shares of AT&T common stock for each BellSouth common share. The new AT&T, which was formed in November when SB Communications Inc. completed its acquisition of AT&T Corp., also said it would repurchase at least $10 billion of its common shares over the next 22 months.
The AT&T-BellSouth combination will dominate its nearest competitor, Verizon. After SBC made its bid to AT&T last year, Verizon had rushed to buy the long-distance carrier MCI Inc.
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.
