News Broadcasting
Challenge is to target all classes of people & yet make money: Manwani
MUMBAI: The International Advertising Association’s (IAA) India chapter kicked off its ‘International Indian’ series with Unilever Asia and Africa president and Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) chairman Harish Manwani.
Speaking from personal experience in the Asian, American and African markets while working in various capacities at Unilver; Manwani threw light on Winning in Developing and Emerging Markets.
Manwani threw statistics on how Unilver brands were the number one brands in most of the developing markets that the company had a presence in. “Our Asian and African offices, we are the market leaders in most priority categories in key countries. We have over 100 years of doing business in the region, which is serviced by a strong local management. The recipe for success is to provide continuous stream of renewed insights and brilliant local executions to serve and delight consumers, deepen partnerships with our customers and build relationships with local communities,” he said.
Explaining Unilever’s business strategy, Manwani said, “Our consumers are diverse. There are 300 million affluent consumers, 1.2 billion aspiring and 3.2 billion striving. Unilever’s international competitors work on the affluent consumers, who are on top of the pyramid, whereas our local competitors work the striving class at the bottom of the pyramid. Our strategy is to work the pyramid, which comprises the affluent, aspiring and striving people. We aim to leverage the full potential of the community and consumers in the market,” he added.
Throwing light on the company’s strategy to target the aspiring and the striving class, Manwani spoke about the affordable sachets of shampoos, detergent, oil, toothpaste, fairness cream, tea bags and margarine that Unilever came out with. “These were an instant hit the people who could never afford to buy the bottles. The biggest challenge is to create a business model to go to the bottom of the pyramid and at the same time make money,” he said.
He also went on to talk about HLL’s Project Shakti, which was aimed at empowering women in the village. “Project Shakti has generated employment while at the same time it has helped us sell and market our brands in villages. The aim for 2010 is for us to have 100,000 Shakti ammas spread across 500,000 villages in India,” Manwani said.
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.
