News Broadcasting
CNBC-TV18 partners with TCS and Twitter for elections
MUMBAI: Social media can no longer be sidestepped when it comes to figuring out the mood of the people. Recently, c announced its partnership with Twitter for the upcoming elections and now another business broadcaster has decided to bond with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and the social media hub Twitter to track insights into the Lok Sabha elections.
Through TCS’s app iElect, CNBC-TV18 will use the analysis and data from it on air through the day. Says CNBC-TV18 managing editor Shereen Bhan, “These elections are landmark, in the sense that we are all seeing a lot of Indians having conversations and voicing their opinions online. It would be interesting and extremely insightful to be able to gauge the sentiment of Indians in this new age of social media. We at CNBC-TV18 have always been at the heart of bringing value to our viewers through credible reportage, insights and analysis. This partnership complements our cause of enabling our viewers to view elections in a well rounded, informed manner.”
TCS global communications VP and head Pradipta Bagchi said, “TCS is happy to bring real time social media analysis to CNBC-TV18. India has a large amount of smartphone users and almost 100 million first-time voters in general elections 2014. TCS iElect will be new and engaging for them to participate through the entire process with its gamified and interactive features We think bringing live television & Twitter together along with TCS’s big data capability will change the way India will look at election 2014.”
Twitter India marketi director Rishi Jaitly commented “Twitter is at the heart of the political conversation in this election. We are excited that CNBC-TV18, using the TCS iElect App, will be distributing Twitter conversations and their analysis to a new set of TV viewers. This is in line with our strategy of making elections-related conversations on Twitter accessible by everyone, placing real-time data and content in the hands of every Indian to make an informed voting decision.”
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: 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.
