News Broadcasting
CNBC to air first post-Tsunami interview with Indonesian president
MUMBAI: Following the CNBC Strategic Forum: The New Indonesia 2005: Policy and Action, which took place in Jakarta 24 January, CNBC has kicked off its comprehensive series of specials on the country with an exclusive interview with Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in The CNBC Conversation.
In his first international television interview since the 26 December tsunami tragedy, Yudhoyono talks to CNBC’s Lisa Oake about dealing with the disaster, security issues in Jakarta and the urgent need to boost the economy.
The CNBC Conversation is an award-winning interview programme that recently featured key figures such as Malaysia’s Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Philippine president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and India’s Finance Minister P Chidambaram.
CNBC Asia Pacific senior vice president news programming Cynthia Owens said, “President Yudhoyono has only been in office for about 100 days and he’s facing some big challenges. We are proud that the president chose to talk to CNBC and we think this interview will be of great interest to CNBC’s viewers across Asia.”
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.
