News Broadcasting
AXN to add one-hour Hindi feed from 5 Jan
MUMBAI: ‘AXN now speaks the Indian language,’ says the release, but didn’t the channel go blue in the face denying any such plans just recently?
As a New Year “bonanza”, AXN will introduce a dual feed in Hindi and English from 8:00 pm to 9:00 pm every Monday to Friday, starting Monday, 5 January.
The feed will premiere with the popular Ripleys Believe It or Not . Incidentally, it was in September last that a media report had quoted AXN assistant vice president marketing and sales Rohit Bhandari saying a dual feed was in the offing. Later AXN Asia marketing V-P Gregory Ho denied the possiblity in an interview.
When contacted Bhandari offered, “Yes at that time we were considering the propositions, but nothing was decided. When I spoke to the daily, all I said was that a programme like Ripley’s believe it or not would be popular even if it was made in any Indian language and I was assured of its success if I were to dub it. The newspaper created a headline stating that we were going for a dual feed. It was completely incorrect. Me saying that I want to get married doesn’t translate into me getting married soon!”
The channel will be introducing the dual feed on an experimental basis, only one hour per day, for about three months. Bhandari offered that besides the show, the channel would also be dubbing six odd movies.
Audience who wish to to get the Hindi feed will have to contact their cable operators and make arrangementa.
There is a likelihood of the channel gradually include some other high rated shows in the one-hour time block, but that again will depend on the popularity of this experiment, says Bhandari.
According to the channel, the attempt is to establish a connect with its audiences and broaden its viewership base.
SET’s executive vice president Rohit Gupta was quoted in the release as saying, “AXN has been very successful in striking a fine balance between managing a firmly entrenched international brand while infusing just the required amount of local flavour to give viewers the Buzz. AXN constantly ups its ante by bringing viewers a unique mix of on-air programming and off-air activities, whether its bringing Indias first reality TV show the AXN Extreme Dhamaka, the AXN Hot N Wild Contest or introducing the latest dual feed.”
“Banking on its unique positioning and solid brand familiarity, we are sure this initiative is going to be a huge success with the Hindi speaking viewers thereby enabling AXN to effectively build bridges with a larger audience base and entrench its roots further” he adds.
Just some more proof (if proof were needed) as to the importance of the Indian viewer’s sensibilities to channels that have a pan-Asian reach?
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.
