News Broadcasting
Balaji promoters offload 10% equity to FIIs
The promoters of hit soap factory Balaji Telefilms, Jeetendra Kapoor and his family members, have offloaded 10.11 per cent of their equity to a group of foreign institutional investors, bringing down their stake in the company to 57.80 per cent, the company has confirmed.
Balaji Telefilms company secretary Ajay Patadia confirmed the stake sale but would not reveal the price paid per share in the offload. The only confirmation on this is that it is over Rs 600 per share.
A Reuters report, quoting market sources, said US-based Capital International was one of the buyers. Reuters also quoted Patadia as saying Singapore-based Alliance Capital was among the funds which have a big exposure to the company.
Meanwhile CNBC India, quoted Balaji chairman Jeetendra Kapoor as saying there would be no more divestment for the near term at least.
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.
