News Broadcasting
Bangalore cable ops meet CM; state-wide blackout averted
BANGALORE: The impasse between the cable operators and the Karnataka state government run power utility Bangalore Electric Supply Company (Bescom) seems to have broken, at least for the present. It finally took a brief meeting late Saturday evening with chief minister N Dharam Singh to break the ice.
The CM has agreed to hear out the cable operators’ grievances in a more extensive meeting tomorrow. As things stand, the dispute, which yesterday threatened to blow up and engulf the entire state with a blanking out of all cable TV screens has had a cooling off, at least for now.
Irate cable operators had threatened to go on a state wide strike if Bescom did not stop indiscriminate cable cutting, the orders for which were issued following the death last Monday of 7-year-old city boy Anish when he came in contact with a loosely hanging live wire. Cable operators in a rare show of unity had gone on strike following the action by Bescom and had blanked TV screens across Bangalore since Thursday.
A failed meeting on Friday with power minister HD Revanna did nothing to soothe the angry cable operators, who resorted to slogan shouting when Revanna abruptly terminiated the meeting.
A spokesman from the Zee Network, meanwhile has informed that the Civil Court at Bangalore has passed an ex-parte injunction preventing Bescom from cutting/dismantling/removing cables of Zee Interactive Multi-Media Ltd. The next hearing is scheduled for 2 August.
During a telecom, Jagdish of The Karnataka Cable TV Chambers of Commerce said most MSO’s had obtained stay orders against Bescom restraining it from cutting cables. According to Jagdish, all MSO’s had restarted transmission, but normalcy may be possible only after all the ‘cut’ cables are restored.
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.
