News Broadcasting
Cable consumers must have multiple options: Baijal
MUMBAI: It was on Wednesday that the Telecom Authority of India (TRAI) chairman Pradip Baijal set the cat among the “cable pigeons” when he declared that he was all for the elimination of cable operators’ monopolies. Baijal’s recipe: possibly “allowing three operators in an area”.
Today, Baijal qualified that statement further and said consumers should have multiple options like cable, broadband, DTH and set-top boxes to watch satellite TV channels at home.
“The consumers should have multiple options, DTH is very welcome, as also others like broadband. You can’t have one system only, otherwise local monopolies will develop as they have developed now,” Baijal was quoted by the Press Trust of India as telling reporters. He was speaking on the sidelines of a TRAI open house discussion on ‘Accelerating growth of Internet and broadband’, in Bangalore.
Interestingly, if one goes by the PTI report, Baijal has steered away from any mention of more than one cable service provider competing for customer preference in an area. What he seems to be saying is that the consumer should have a choice of platforms that he can access through which he can get his daily dose of television. If that is the case, there is unlikely to be any opposition from the cable fraternity on this matter.
The report quotes Baijal as saying the cable TV industry needs to be lauded for the spurt in satellite TV channels in an unregulated environment. However, there was a need for a regulator in the light of the in creasing disputes among the industry players, he has been quoted as saying.
“Implementing the regulations is a problem, but world over, the telecom regulator regulates this (broadcast),” the report quotes him as saying.
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.
