News Broadcasting
Chandra relieves Goyal of CEO post at Zee
NEW DELHI / MUMBAI: It is official now. Sandeep Goyal, group broadcasting chief executive of the Subhash Chandra promoted Zee Telefilms will no longer continue in his present capacity. Chandra, the chairman of the company will directly provide leadership, support and guidance to the core team and to the new three-pronged strategic direction that has been devised by the biggest media company of India.
Goyal has already relinquished charge as group broadcasting CEO and has been appointed advisor to Zee Network, something which, media observers have described as, being one step away from being totally cut off from the company. A former CEO of Zee Telefilms, Vijay Jindal, also had been similarly made advisor before being eased out completely.
The core team which will now give direction to Zee’s new strategy and attempt to bring back the company in the race for the top slot, occupied by Star Network for the last three years now, comprises Apurva Purohit, president Zee TV, Prashant Sanwal, director of Alpha channels, Yogesh Radhakrishnan, director of Zee Music and Zee Cinema, Laxmi N Goel (one of the brothers of Chandra) director of Zee News, Jagjit Singh Kohli, director of ETC and Ajay Trigunayat, vice-president of Zee English and Zee MGM. All of them will report in directly to Chandra.
Unveiling what he termed “new strategic directions,” Chandra was quoted in an official release as saying: “Zee Telefilims will focus on programming excellence, multi-pillar channel approach built around the Zee TV flagship and build operational efficiencies to drive shareholder value.”
In the release the company said that the focus on programming excellence would be driven by establishing benchmarks for all programming across channels.
The approach would be to identify market sensitivities to programming content as well as emphasise production values. The qualitative effort would be to ensure relativity with specific emphasis on driving wholesome, family oriented content and catering to a wider viewership, the release said.
Chandra was further quoted as saying: “With the emergence of the conditional access system, the power will be in the hands of consumers in terms of viewership as well as revenue. It is critical that we go into a system of programme benchmarking so that our eyeballs translate into viewer decisions to buy into the the channel.”
One curious facet of the Zee release is that there is no mention of what role Partha Pratim Sinha, director-marketing, has in the new scheme of things. This is obviously bound to raise questions as to whether he is in or out but the only definitive on this score is that Sinha is not part of the core team.
According to Chandra: “Sandeep brought in new energy into the channel and I am pleased that he will continue to advise the organisation.”
On his part Goyal, rumours about whose impending exit had been doing the rounds of media circles for over a fortnight now, was quoted as saying: “My association with the Zee Network has been very exciting. I am now taking a bit of time off to be on a sabbatical for the next few months. I shall continue to be available to Zee for any help or advice.”
Goyal joined Zee Telefilms from Rediffusion in April 2001. When Goyal joined Zee he promised a complete relaunch of the channel, did a total clean up of the programme inventory, launched 24 new shows in one shot, opted for a channel mascot that he called “Khushi” (joy) – all in the space of just 100 days.
Of course it’s another matter that all that unholy haste led to nothing more than Subhash Chandra’s flagship channel landing up with some serious egg on its face.
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.
