News Broadcasting
Cinevista stocks whimper at debut
After the IT stocks hit rock bottom it’s the turn of media stocks to do the same. Even as Zee Telefilms stocks continue to fall, Cinevista has made its debut at the most fragile time when the sentiments of the new economy stock markets are at all time low.
Cinevista opened its shares to the public in February at a price of Rs 300 per share. The markets then were all gung-ho about the new economy stocks and Cinevista’s stocks were over subscribed 200 times. Zee was at its all time high at Rs 1630 per share. But since then the price of Zee has come down by more than half.
In keeping with the trends Cinevista also closed the day at Rs 293.35. Its stock continued to swing between Rs 136 and Rs 329 throughout the day. This despite the fact that media stocks are not as fragile as the dotcom stocks.
This, analysts say is definitely not a healthy trend. The highly debatable valuation techniques adopted by the dotcom and media companies are now being exposed with Sebi officials taking the matter in their own hands.
These trends will hopefully deter many other media companies’ who want to jump into the IPO wave. The most anticipated media stocks which could do some rethinking are Deeraj Kumar promoted Creative Eye Ltd and Pritish Nandy’s Pritish Nandy Communication Ltd.
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.
