News Broadcasting
BBC Worldwide holding showcase for global buyers in the UK
MUMBAI: BBC Worldwide’s trade event BBC Showcase is taking place in Brighton England till 1 March 2007. 560 buyers from all over the globe are in attendance. The annual event sees BBC Worldwide generate programme sales and broker international funding deals for co productions on behalf of the BBC, other UK networks and independent producers.
Delegate numbers the BBC says have grown as buyers from traditional television networks are increasingly joined by a new generation of buyers looking to license content for digital media platforms such as mobile television, independent video on demand services and digital extensions to traditional television networks.
The past year has seen BBC Worldwide secure content deals around the world with major digital media platforms across Europe, Asia Pacific and the Americas, including Vodafone, Orange, T-Online, Telstra, ONO, Netflix, Amazon US, Hanaromedia Korea and Telefonica. Combined with strong growth in traditional programme sales, these new markets for content are seeing BBC Worldwide’s Global TV Sales division well on target to make around £190million (US$370million) this financial year, up from last year’s £171million (US$333million).
BBC Worldwide Global TV sales MD Mark Young, said, “We secure the best deal for our content and this involves a much wider number of viewing platforms in each ter-ritory than previously. Traditional television platforms remain a central part of our business, but there is a great deal of room to embrace new platforms alongside them. Viewing habits are changing and our business is changing with them.”
In line with the increasing digitisation and convergence of its client base, BBC Worldwide is taking steps to future-proof its content and delivery capabilities. Already, over 1,000 hours of programming has been digitised and BBC Worldwide is now investing heavily in digitising all current and back catalogue in order to protect quality, improve delivery across a wider range of devices and move towards a tapeless business.
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.
