News Broadcasting
Campaign urges government to review Community Radio policy
BANGALORE: A petition signed by the national campaign group cr-India has urged the union government to immediately clarify its stand on Community Radio.
The group feels that community radio should be expanded to other sectors in order to unleash potential of radio for community development and empowerment of marginalised groups in rural areas.
This would create a three-tier system of broadcasting in India, with clearly demarcated public, private and community sectors, as in many other democracies, the group points out in an official release.
Though the government of India, in 2003, announced “guidelines for community radio”, it was limited to “established educational institutions”. Now a draft policy on community radio in India is awaiting approval by the Union Cabinet. In early October, the Cabinet referred it to a Group of Ministers (GoM) for further discussion.
More than 50,000 people from around the country, including academics, activists, civil society organizations, and rural communities, have joined hands in the campaign to form Cr-India. The group is now seeking an appointment with the prime minister to submit a petition requesting an immediate solution.
The community radio movement draws its inspiration and legitimacy from the landmark judgement in 1995 by the Supreme Court of India that declared the airwaves to be public property, to be used for public good and in public interest. In a highly selective interpretation of that judgment, the government embarked on a path of privatisation of airwaves allowing private FM radio stations to be set up by corporate entities.
Even as this process is continuing unabated, the Government is hesitating to open up the airwaves for grassroots communities on the basis of unfounded concerns about the security and sovereignty of the nation, states the release.
While waiting for a legal framework to be put in place by the Government, rural communities in Karnataka Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Jharkhand India have been running highly successful community radio projects, by either narrowcasting or using limited space available on All India Radio. Other grassroots organizations are waiting eagerly for a community radio policy so that they can initiate similar projects in their regions, the release adds.
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.
