News Broadcasting
Ballots without breaks Zee 24 Taas readies 72-hour election marathon
MUMBAI: When ballots meet the clock, Zee 24 Taas plans to stay awake. As municipal elections roll out across Maharashtra, the Marathi news channel is gearing up for what it calls its most exhaustive poll exercise yet, a 72-hour, non-stop broadcast powered by 72 reporters stationed across the state.
Under the banner 72 Hours | 72 Reporters | Non-Stop Coverage, Zee 24 Taas will deliver uninterrupted, ground-level reporting from polling booths, counting centres and political nerve centres. The coverage is designed to run seamlessly through voting day, counting and emerging trends, offering viewers real-time updates without pause at every critical turn of the election process.
The initiative caps weeks of campaign-led programming that has seen political heavyweights, decision-makers and analysts cycle through the channel’s studios. For the final stretch, Zee 24 Taas is bringing together its senior editorial voices, trusted panelists and data-backed analysis to go beyond headline numbers and unpack what each development signals on the ground.
Explaining the editorial intent, Zee 24 Taas editor Kamlesh Sutar said the focus is on presence and perspective. With reporters deployed across Maharashtra for the full 72 hours, the aim is to capture local voices, verify developments as they happen and give audiences context alongside speed, rather than treating results as a standalone scoreboard.
In a crowded election news cycle, the channel is betting on scale and stamina. By committing people, time and airtime in equal measure, Zee 24 Taas is positioning its coverage as a continuous civic record, one that follows the vote from first inked finger to final count, without blinking.
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.
