News Broadcasting
BBC World’s deal with Emirates for live in-flight news
NEW DELHI: Emirates has signed an agreement with BBC World, making the Dubai-based airline the first to offer live BBC news headlines on its aircraft.
The new service, effective immediately, means that passengers can stay in touch with the latest news, business and sport stories from the www.bbcnews.com website. Information is updated regularly throughout each flight and displayed on overhead monitors or personal video screens, an official statement from the BBC states.
Headlines are sent constantly from the BBC website and retransmitted to the aircraft through Inmarsat geostationary satellites, positioned 35,600km above earth. The software and communications infrastructure for the service was developed in-house by Emirates.
BBC World travel distribution head Bill Mould added, “The BBC is renowned for its authoritative, accurate, balanced presentation of the news. This agreement with Emirates means the airline’s passengers can be the best informed, most up-to-date travellers in the skies.”
Emirates had been presenting a selection of headlines on its brand new Airbus A340-500 aircraft, including the top six news stories and the top four business and sport developments. The new service now becomes available on all A330s and Boeing B777-300s, as well as some B777-200s.
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.
