News Broadcasting
CBI books NDTV promoters for FDI violations: report
MUMBAI: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has booked promoters of news channel NDTV, Prannoy Roy, Radhika Roy, former CEO and director Vikram Chandra and some Income Tax officials on charges of conspiracy, cheating and corruption. They are being accused of allegedly violating FDI rules between 2004 and 2010.
As per a report by Hindustan Times, NDTV has dismissed the allegations stating that they are ‘malicious’ and ‘fabricated’ so as to ‘silence free and fair reportage’.
The CBI is alleging that NDTV colluded with IT officials to bring tainted money into the system through a web of complex transactions through FDI. This was done by floating 32 subsidiaries in various tax havens across the world such as Mauritius, Netherlands, Dubai, UK and Malaysia. The CBI states that NDTV’s London company raised funds worth $120 million from two companies while the Netherlands company raised $150 million from NBCUniversal, which was at the time a subsidiary of General Electric Inc. The money was then routed to different NDTV Group subsidiaries such as NDTV Imagine Ltd, NDTV Life Style Ltd, NDTV Emerging Market BV, NDTV Convergence Ltd and NDTV Labs Ltd.
NDTV, in a written response, said, “As part of the continued persecution of free press, a new CBI case has been filed about a $150 million investment in NDTV’s non-news business by NBCU, then owned by General Electric, a massive American conglomerate. The case makes the ludicrous charge that the transaction, declared to all relevant authorities in the US and India, laundered money for unknown public servants.”
“Attempts to silence free and fair reportage through malicious and fabricated charges will not succeed. This is not about a company or individuals but about a larger battle to maintain the freedom of the press, something which India has always been renowned for,” the statement added.
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.
