News Broadcasting
Broadcasters to move court against fringe benefit tax
NEW DELHI: Broadcasters in India are contemplating moving the court against the fringe benefit tax (FBT) levied by the government from this year on taxpayers.
The contention of broadcasters is likely to be that it’s unconstitutional and breaches certain fundamental rights.
According to a senior executive of television company having operations in India, the proposal on seeking legal redressal is being studied by a sub-committee of the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), which is an apex body of broadcasting companies.
The details of the proposed case against the Central government are not clear as things are still being worked out and legal consultations taking place.
The much-debated FBT legislation seeks to levy tax on any privilege, service, facility, amenity provided by the employer to the employee. There are various categories of expenditure on which the levy is charged.
A 30 per cent FBT has to be paid by the employer on a defined base. However, the tax liability for some sectors — pharma, construction, computer software — is lower because of a reduction in the base for valuation of expenses.
News channels, for example, are likely to contend that FBT should not be levied on allowances given to editorial professionals for news gathering purpose as the money is being used for discharging legitimate professional duties.
Broadcasters might also plead that if the FBT is to be levied on TV companies, then it should be brought at par with sectors like computer software that pay lower tax.
An admission of a case relating to FBT in one of the courts in the state of Andhra Pradesh has encouraged broadcasting companies to explore knocking the judiciary’s doors.
Earlier this month, The Economic Times a legal battle over the controversial fringe benefit tax has begun with the Andhra Pradesh High Court granting interim relief to a taxpayer who filed a writ petition challenging the validity of the levy.
The interim order says that the revenue department shall receive an advance tax of 5 per cent (against 20 per cent) from the petitioner and further action should be subject to the outcome of the petition. The petitioner is a private sector company in the publication business.
The HC, however, has made it clear that the interim relief is only to the petitioner and shall not extend to other tax payers.
The revenue department is nevertheless worried about the possible spate of legal wrangles over the FBT legislation. It has sounded out its legal cells to appoint counsels to argue cases where taxpayers already have or plan to challenge the FBT legislation, ET reported.
The AP court is understood to have issued a notice to the Central government to reply to the writ petition. The petitioner challenged the FBT legislation on the grounds of legislative competence and discrimination in classification.
The contention was that the classification for the purpose of levying a confessional tax to certain categories of taxpayers is discriminatory and should be extended to the newspaper industry, the newspaper report stated.
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.
