News Broadcasting
China gives digital TV licence to 4 State-owned cos
MUMBAI: State Administration of Radio, Film and Television China has granted licence to four companies in the country for digital television broadcasting.
The decision indicates country’s plans to expand competition in the television arena. The move will also end the monopoly on digital television held by State broadcaster China Central Television (CCT).
What is significant here is that all the four broadcasting companies that have been granted the licence – Shanghai TV, China Broadcast Network Company, CHC Home Cinema and a five-company consortium that includes China National Radio – are owned by the government.
A recent digital project in the coastal town Qingdao converted 600,00 homes to digital television with 60 government channels. China is expected to have 30 million TV viewers by 2008.
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.
