News Broadcasting
CNBC asserts lead over NDTV 24×7 among affluent adult males
MUMBAI: The ratings war is well and truly joined. Three days after NDTV’s new business channel NDTV Profit asserted it had toppled market leader CNBC-TV18 in viewership among business news channels, comes the riposte.
A release issued by the business news channel leader reaffirms a position it had taken at the outset in response to the assertions made by NDTV Profit of overtaking CNBC-TV18 if a C&S 4+ all India market was taken as the sampling TG. Quoting the latest TAM data (22-29 January), CNBC claims pole position among English news channels at 36 per cent channel share among of 25+ males in SEC AB. That is even ahead of Profit’s English news channel sibling NDTV 24×7, which has a 33 per cent share. And where does Profit figure in this listing? In the fourth position with a 9 per cent channel share just behind Headlines Today at 11 per cent.
Interestingly, CNBC’s argument is validated by Ravi Kiran, managing director, West/South Starcom Mediavest, who says, “As a media planner, this (the TG that CNBC has used) represents to me the core viewership of an English news channel.”
Elaborating further on the trends the data threw, Sai Kumar, vice-president, CNBC-TV18 says, “Also noteworthy is the potential of the business television space; going by the fact that within a month of its launch NDTV Profit has managed to get a 9 per cent share. We are confident, that Awaaz, our consumer channel in Hindi will exploit this potential even further.
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.
