News Broadcasting
CNN suspends political analyst Martin for anti-gay tweets
MUMBAI: CNN has suspended its political analyst Roland Martin three days after he posted Twitter messages that were said to be anti-gay.
“Roland Martin’s tweets were regrettable and offensive,” the cable news channel said in a statement. “Language that demeans is inconsistent with the values and culture of our organization, and is not tolerated. We have been giving careful consideration to this matter, and Roland will not be appearing on our air for the time being,” it read.
In one of his many Tweets,Martin had said that if a “dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham’s H&M underwear ad, he should be smacked.” In another message he made a similar statement about a football fan wearing a “head to toe pink suit” on TV.
After angry comments from online readers about the Beckham remark started pouring in, he defended himself by saying that he was mocking soccer players and not gay people.“I was not referring to sexuality directly or indirectly regarding the David Beckham ad, and I’m sorry folks took it otherwise,” he wrote.
Later on Monday, Martin issued a longer statement late Monday night that Erik Wemple of The Washington Post said was “old hogwash.”
By then, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation had highlighted other comments by Martin and insisted that he be fired from CNN.
The next day, CNN indicated that no punishment was forthcoming as Martin had apologized in a statement and noted that the original comments were made on Twitter and not the television network. “For the moment we’re letting him apologize and we’re hoping that people will understand that he is sorry for what he said.”
Along with him regularly appearing on CNN, Martin is the host of “Washington Watch,” a weekly broadcast on cable channel TV One.
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.
