News Broadcasting
Bachchan pays off half his debt to DD
Former big screen superstar turned TV deity Amitabh Bachchan on Thursday paid off nearly half the dues amount of Rs203.1 million his company, ABCL (rechristened AB Corp), owed to the national broadcaster.
Bachchan has also promised to return the rest of the outstanding dues in three instalments next year during March, June and September.
Bachchan presented a cheque of Rs96.5 million to Prasar Bharati CEO RR Shah in New Delhi at a press conference where Samajwadi Party leader and close friend Amar Singh was present. He had recently given a cheque of Rs5 million to Prasar Bharati. Bachchan said that to pay towards the interest of his dues of Rs 123.5 million, he would participate in Doordarshan’s public interest programmes.
Among the 75 companies which had outstanding dues against Doordarshan, the government-owned NFDC topped the list owing over Rs630 million followed by ABCL and Multi channel as of November this year.
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.
