News Broadcasting
BBC programming to be off FM stations in Moscow
MUMBAI: BBC World Service has been informed by the owners of the Moscow FM radio station Bolshoye Radio that BBC programming in Russian will no longer be broadcast on the station.
This was BBC Russian Service’s last FM distribution partner station in Russia. It follows two
other FM partner stations ceasing to take BBC programmes over the last nine months.
The owners of Bolshoye Radio, financial group Finam, have told representatives of the BBC Russian Service that they are required to remove BBC programming at the request of Russian licensing authorities, or risk the station being taken off-air.
The UK pubcaster says that it understands that this will take effect in advance of its scheduled block of programmes this afternoon at 17:00 Moscow time (MT).
The BBC intends to appeal to Russia’s Federal Service for the Supervision of Mass Media, Communication and Protection of Cultural Heritage. It will ask for the decision to be reviewed and for the original concept of the station to be respected.
According to official warnings received by Finam from the regulatory body, the licence requires that all programming must be produced by Bolshoye Radio itself.
However the BBC said that the detailed concept documents – the basis on which the licence was awarded in February 2006 – clearly state that only “60 per cent of the station’s total output will be original material produced by Bolshoye Radio.”
The BBC also stated that according to the same concept documents, the station would also have up to 18 per cent foreign produced content. This percentage of foreign content is reflected in the station’s licence.
The concept documents of the station include the BBC and Voice of Russia as content providers and as integral parts of the output – specifically in order to enable the station “to reflect many and often
contradictory views on current affairs”.
BBC Global News director Richard Sambrook said, “We are extremely disappointed that listeners to Bolshoye Radio in Moscow will be unable to listen to our impartial and independent news and information programming in the high quality audibility of FM.
“The BBC has invested a great deal of energy and resources into developing high quality programming for the station. The BBC has similar broadcasting arrangements with partner stations around the world. Our services are available on FM in over 150 capital cities – some 75 per cent of the global total.
“The BBC entered into the relationship with Bolshoye Radio in good faith, and the licence was won in a competitive tender in February 2006. We cannot understand how the licence is now interpreted in a way that does not reflect the original and thorough concept documents.
“We are appealing to Russia’s Federal Service for the Supervision of Mass Media, Communication and
Protection of Cultural Heritage. We will ask for the decision to be reviewed and for the original concept of the station to be respected.”
The BBC and Voice of Russia have been on Bolshoye Radio since May this year. The station, which was sold in July to financial investment company Finam, was currently at a test signal stage ahead of an official launch planned for the autumn.
The BBC has had previous problems with FM broadcasting in Russia. At the end of 2006, Moscow station Radio Arsenal ceased taking BBC programming, and in early 2006 the St Petersburg station Radio Leningrad also stopped taking BBC programmes. Radio Leningrad informed the BBC that it had been required to stop broadcasting BBC programmes by local licensing authorities.
BBC Russian programmes continue to be audio streamed online at bbcrussian.com.
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.
