News Broadcasting
ATTRACTING INTERNATIONAL FILM BUSINESS TO INDIA
he world over more and more countries understands the rewards of attracting International film productions to shoot within their boundaries. In the short term not only do these productions bring in much required money, training and infrastructure. They also provide an impetus to ailing film industries; they provide much needed work and revenue.
The long term has more to offer. An international hit film seen globally does more for tourism in one stroke than any campaign costing millions of dollars. This was first seen with the case of the English patient. The Algerian government capitalized on the Oscar nomination of this film and tourism grew 10 fold. New Zealand has seen the same phenomena with Lord of the Rings. The locations of the film shooting have become great tourist destinations, as has the country as a whole.
Countries blessed with exotic locations understand the importance of creating opportunities to film so as to ensure instant publicity, which leads to greater tourism apart from the enormous resources that any film brings to the economy.
In recent times Switzerland, Scotland, Ireland and parts of the Midlands have understood this and have provided great benefits for Indian film crews to shoot scenes there. Their long-term agenda is to increase tourism.
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.
