News Broadcasting
CCTV uses Tandberg Television MPEG-4 AVC HD system for Fifa coverage
MUMBAI: Tandberg Television has announced that it is enabling China Central Television (CCTV) to provide its viewers with high definition coverage of live games from the Fifa 2006 World Cup in Germany.
CCTV is using Tandberg Television’s award-winning MPEG-4 AVC HD encoding and decoding solutions to maximize the bandwidth of its DS3 international link and its local delivery network.
CCTV is one of the 150 operators from 145 countries that have broadcasting rights from Fifa’s Host Broadcast Services (HBS). Live feeds from matches in 12 German cities are being broadcast around the world, including the final in Berlin on 9 July. For almost a year, CCTV has been broadcasting an HDTV service using a Tandberg MPEG-2 head-end system, states an official release.
“Broadcasting the World Cup in high definition is not only a magnificent achievement in its own right, but is also an excellent preparation for the upcoming 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing,” says CCTV chief engineer Ding Wen Hua. “The implication for large-scale broadcasting in HD is immense and this is a significant event in the Chinese, and Asian, television industry.”
As well as using Tandberg’s advanced HD compression, CCTV is the first broadcaster in Asia to use the new professional multi-format MPEG-2/MPEG-4 AVC SD/HD decoder, the Tandberg RX1290, which is being launched at Broadcast Asia this week.
he Tandberg RX1290 receiver is the world’s first multi-format MPEG-2/MPEG-4 AVC decoder, capable of processing and decoding more video formats than any other receiver and enabling network operators and broadcasters to deliver content from studio to studio and across networks to regional head-ends and affiliates, 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.
