News Broadcasting
CNN IBN launches next gen show ‘Y Not’
MUMBAI: English news channel CNN IBN is launching a new show, Y Not, inspired by the new India starting today.
Y Not will motivate and provide a forum to young India to question and discuss the issues that matter to them, claims the channel. The show will be aired every Friday at 8.30 pm.
Says IBN18 Network editor-in-chief Rajdeep Sardesai, “Meeting the needs of the next generation will require a change at several levels including a change in thinking and mindset of the society. This is possible only when we listen to and have a hand on the pulse of the youth. Y Not is one such initiative dedicated to voicing the needs of young India.”
Y Not, as per the channel, will be the platform for the youth to voice their opinions through debates on current issues like moral policing, drug abuse, education, racism, women security, ragging and gay rights.
The show will pick a current issue and scrutinize it by opinionated young people. It will also showcase young achievers who are creators of their own learnings from all lengths of life from across the country. It will break taboos on the topics that are normally brushed under and will be current in content, questioning and analysing in its slant and irreverent in its attitude and style.
Additionally, Y Not will also guide on the hippest, coolest and the latest in all the zones. The show will also have youth perform spoofs, videos and songs to express themselves.
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.
