News Broadcasting
Bharat24 onboards news anchor Shazia Nisar
Mumbai: National Hindi news channel Bharat24 on Monday announced the appointment of senior anchor Shazia Nisar to host its daily 5 p.m. debate show, Public Hai Sab Janti Hai.
In addition to her prime-time show, Shazia will also be covering the upcoming assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh for Bharat24’s mega election show, Mukhyamantri.
Prior to joining Bharat24, Nisar was associated with RBharat as a prime-time anchor for the past four years.
The anchor is also known for her recent ground reporting of the Russia-Ukraine war, the 2019 General Elections, the Assembly Elections in Uttar Pradesh and Bengal, and the farmers’ agitation in New Delhi.
Born and brought up in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, Nisar is an alumnus of Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. She has also worked with TV9 Bharatvarsh, India News, and Zee Media.
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.
