News Broadcasting
BBC World’s Nisha Pillai buoyant about covering Indian elections
NEW DELHI: She has interviewed Rupert Murdoch in her capacity as a business reporter and loved doing so. Doesn’t have any immediate plans to switch organisations from her present stint at Beebs. And she is pretty excited to cover the Indian elections, live that is, for BBC World, which is having a special coverage session for the great democratic ‘tamasha’, er, process, that would culminate with the results being declared on 13 May and the unfolding of new political arithmetic.
But for Nisha Pillai it is all part of the game even if she has “to do some quick calculations” that Indian politics could throw up as emerging trends throughout Thursday unravel “various possible permutations and combinations.” After all, she went on air in a certain year on 11 September on BBC World “without a script trying to make sense of everything” as very few had early clues of what was happening and would happen.
Compared to that, probably, Indian politics could be slightly more predictable.
“When the election coverage was planned in January-February, the plan was to bring extensive routine coverage, but as things are unfolding, it has turned out to be a nail biter (of an election),” Pillai says, sitting relaxed in an all-white chic cotton outfit in Beebs Delhi bureau. The traces of long distance traveling, from London to Delhi, if any, have evaporated.
After having touched down in Delhi, Pillai has been busy preparing for the live coverage over the next two days by interacting with the local bureau and journalists who have traveled the length and breadth of the country covering the general elections, spread over two months, from all possible sides, including BBC World’s global perspective of having Americans speak on the Indian elections.
“With the type of rumours swirling around in Delhi at the moment (the meeting with indiantelevision.com happened on 12 May), it is really fascinating,” Pillai says, pointing out that her interaction with the local bureau would prove helpful when she goes on air trying to make some sense of the unfolding scenario.
Though it may not be a situation similar to the 9/11 coverage, but Pillai wants to be as much prepared as possible.
Does she find any similarity between the Indian elections and those back home in the UK? Years of being on television (Pillai joined BBC World in 1995), some of which has been live broadcast, has taught Pillai to be a bit tactful. She avoids a direct reply to the query, but helpfully adds that the relationship between British prime minister Tony Blair and his colleague Brown has “uncanny parallels” to the relationship between Indian PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his colleague and deputy prime minister, LK Advani.
Even if the references to the future of Advani are oblique, the political astuteness of Pillai cannot go amiss.
However, Pillai finds that the dance of democracy in India and the way it has been conducted this time round is a lesson for other developed nations, especially the other big democracy, the United States.
“The use of EVMs (electronic voting machines) is fascinating and a lesson for the US,” Pillai says, adding, “A Third World country (dubbing India a developing nation would have been more politically correct, may be) is conducting elections through electronic machines, while the US doesn’t even have an election regulator.”
Would Pillai hazard a guess on the outcome of the polls held recently? “No way,” she laughs aloud, “I am not making any statements on the outcome.” But, Pillai thinks that her arithmetic is “pretty good”, which would help her do quick mental calculations on air as election results come in thick and fast. May be, Pillai’s first job as a graduate trainee at Schroders Investment Bank has helped in honing this talent with vital stats.
On broader issues, Pillai feels that the Indian broadcasting scenario is “very competitive.” She adds, “I am not so sure whether the print medium has transformed so much, but the broadcasting scene is fantastic and very competitive by global standards as in most issues like graphics, the standard is very high.”
But ask Pillai, how would she describe the Indian elections and she comes up with an apt summation, “It’s a great ‘tamasha’, but is also fascinating as Indians, by and large, are obsessed with politics.”
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.
