News Broadcasting
BBC’s online, radio stations go interactive with Fifa Cup
MUMBAI: The referee has booked your favourite player, your team has lost a crucial match and a star player has shaved off his famous locks.
UK pubcaster The BBC has announced an interactive initiative across online and radio. World Cup Have Your Say will give football fans across the world an opportunity to have a global rant on the Fifa World Cup everyday from 9 June 2006 to 9 July 2006.
World Cup Have Your Say will give supporters across the globe opportunities to share their opinions on everything ranging from offside decisions and goal celebrations, team selections and refereeing to the best players and bad haircuts.
The occasional big name will pop up to give their personal view on the tournament and listeners itching to speak to them can do so. Ay bbcnews.com/worldhaveyoursay visitors can listen live.
The BBC will also provide daily, international coverage of the World Cup in 33 languages including Hindi. BBC Hindi reporter Manak Gupta is travelling to Germany to bring special reports on all 32 teams and their fans. BBC Hindi World Cup reports will be heard for six weeks on India’s main national broadcaster All India Radio’s Gold 106.4 FM and Rajdhani 666 MW.
These reports will also be relayed by All India Radio’s 65 other major stations at 0705 local time starting 31 May until 10 July.
Mumbai based partner station Go 92.5 FM will also carry BBC Hindi’s coverage of the tournament. Manak’s reports will be available in text and audio online at bbchindi.com and bbcnews.com
BBC Vietnamese reporter Hong Thanh will be in Germany for a week bringing the excitement of the games for reports on air and online. Listeners can also expect daily bulletins rounding up each match as well as stories from around the tournament.
bbcvietnamese.com is hosting an online special where football fans can talk about anything to do with the World Cup or football in general such as match fixing and bribery which is said to be affecting the Vietnamese’s national team, and why are millions of young Vietnamese, including women, appearing to love European and Brazilian teams more than their own?
Visitors can also find out about the teams taking part in the tournament, read features on young football talents and enter competitions.
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.
