News Broadcasting
BBC set to launch the second season of ‘Humari Purakhin’
Mumbai: BBC’s Indian language service has announced the second season of “Humari Purakhin” (English: Our Ancestors), the exclusive show, featuring eight Indian female pioneers from marginalised and indigenous communities.
The second season of eight episodes will be available in text and video with two new stories every Thursday and Friday over the next few weeks releasing on: BBC Hindi, BBC Gujarati, BBC Marathi, BBC Punjabi, BBC Tamil, BBC Telugu, and on social platforms. The show will also be available on BBC News, BBC Duniya (on NDTV), BBC Marathi, and BBC Telugu (on Jio).
This new season is a tribute to the trailblazing women reformists who fought for women’s rights and liberation.
Speaking about the show, BBC head of Indian languages, Rupa Jha said, “The contribution of women in building a nation that is free from socio-cultural oppression and bringing the much-needed reforms has not been given as much space. Each story is truly a tribute to those trailblazing women reformists who came from underprivileged communities of different parts/tribes of India and were warriors in all senses fighting for women’s rights and liberation.”
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: 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.
