News Broadcasting
Broadcasters to meet Swaraj to discuss CAS
NEW DELHI: Broadcasters, mostly operating pay channels in India, are slated to meet India’s information and broadcasting minister Sushma Swaraj in the first week of January 2003 on the issue of conditional access system (CAS).
According to government sources, the broadcasters have requested for an audience with the minister on CAS and its implementation.
Despite opposition from certain quarters in the broadcasting sector, Swaraj has seen to it that CAS has got the full nod of Parliament and her ministry is now looking at an early rollout of CAS in the four metros in the first phase.
Though the broadcasters would have liked an appointment with the minister sooner than the scheduled one, government sources said the minister probably does not have much time between now and the tentative date which has been zeroed down upon.
At the time when CAS was okayed by Rajya Sabha (Upper House) earlier this month, the Indian Broadcasting Foundation, an apex body broadcasters operating in India, had said that its members “fully support CAS” and would cooperate with the government in facilitating “a smooth transition to CAS regime.”
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.
