News Broadcasting
BBC chairman Grade affirms BBC’s commitment to interactive TV
MUMBAI: BBC chairman, Michael Grade has reinforced the broadcaster’s commitment to working more closely with the interactive TV industry to create a vibrant market.
In his keynote speech to the Interactive TV Show Europe in Barcelona, Grade said the BBC had “a duty” to “invigorate the market” by working more closely with independent production companies and sharing the BBC’s expertise.
“We must never forget that the BBC has been able to achieve its current leadership position in interactive partly because its secure funding has allowed it to make substantial investments in this new technology at a time when others in the industry have not been able to. That puts certain obligations on us.”
Grade added that as a producer of interactive TV services, the BBC would be prepared to share its expertise if companies asked for help. “The great store of knowledge the BBC has amassed about interactive is not just a BBC resource, but a resource for the whole industry including other broadcasters.”
Stressing that for audiences “great content” is their imperative for using new technologies, Mr Grade said the BBC’s Board of Governors “have a duty to ensure the BBC is run in the public interest, and that includes ensuring a level playing field in the supply of content as between BBC in-house producers and those working in the independent sector. “In principle that must apply to the supply of interactive television content as to anything else.”
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.
