News Broadcasting
CNBC-TV18 focuses on South India with ‘Up South’
MUMBAI: CNBC-TV18 is all set to launch a new show Up South to capture a 360-degree view of southern India. The show will capture the buzz in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Trivandrum and Kochi – from multiple perspectives.
The show will telecast live on every Saturday at 10:30 am and a repeat telecast will be aired at 7 pm on Sundays.
The show will include a content focus on small and medium enterprises, infrastructure problems, realty prices, private equity flows into the cities; government policy in the states and the entertainment from the South.
CNBC-TV18 will report stories from the smaller towns and cities that go largely unheard. It claims to act as a trend spotter on the changing trends in southern India’s business landscape.
Up South will also include a special segment for young viewers straight from major campuses such as IIT Chennai, ISB Hyderabad, IIM Bangalore and the likes — to hear the voice of young India on the key issues of the week.
TV18 business media director Ajay Chacko said, “Up South will allow us to aggregate our coverage of Southern India, increase our focus on new business trends in the region and create an appointment opportunity for our viewers”
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.
