News Broadcasting
BBC launches 24 hour FM station in Kabul
MUMBAI: Radio listeners in Kabul can now hear BBC World Service programmes in English 24 hours a day thanks to the launch of a new FM station, BBC 101.6 FM.
The programmes broadcast on BBC 101.6 FM range from health and sport to business and music. Key programmes include Newshour, which offers news and analysis of the day’s top stories from around the globe. The World Today examines in detail the stories that make the headlines. Talking Point meanwhile enables listeners and internet users to put questions to leading international figures.
BBC World Service head Eurasia Region Behrouz Afagh said, ” Thanks to this development, listeners in Kabul can now hear for the first time the full range of BBC programmes in English in crystal clear quality in addition to BBC programmes broadcast in Pashto, Persian and Uzbek through our other BBC FM stations.”
BBC World Service is available globally on short wave; on FM in 139 capital cities; and selected programmes are carried on around 2,000 FM and MW radio stations around the world. BBC World Service claims that its websites receive around 280 million page impressions every month.
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.
