News Broadcasting
CNN to be feted at SAJA awards
NEW YORK: CNN’s Indra Sibal and Ash-har Quraishi will be honoured for their contribution to the field of journalism this weekend in New York. Both are the winners of 2003 SAJA Journalism Awards contest to be given away by the South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA) at its ninth annual dinner on 20 June at Columbia University.
In the outstanding editorial/op-ed on South Asia category CNN correspondent Indra Sibal is being cited for the video documentary Arranged Marriage. This takes a look at the tradition of organising a wedding in India.
The broadcaster’s Ash-har Quraishi is gong to be recognised for the series Pakistan Decides. The category is Special Project on South Asia or South Asians in North America.
The stories examine our neighbours struggle to move forward towards creating a democratic environment.
These annual awards recognise excellence in reporting about South Asia, as well as outstanding reporting by South Asian journalists and students in the US and Canada. The awards ceremony is part of the SAJA international convention, which takes place from 20-22 June and is expected to draw 600 journalists and guests from the US, Canada, Europe and South Asia.
The awards will be presented at Columbia University by The Oregonian executive editor Peter Bhatia and CNN International’s executive VP and GM Rena Golden. In addition, Bhatia and Golden, the senior-most South Asians in US newspapers and television, respectively, will each receive a SAJA Journalism Leader Award in recognition of their contributions to the field of journalism.
The convention’s opening speaker is ABC News anchor Peter Jennings. He will talk about his experiences covering South Asia and other international stories for more than 30 years. SAJA will also pay tribute to the memory of slain reporter Daniel Pearl, who, as Mumbai bureau chief of The Wall Street Journal, was a regular participant in SAJA’s cyber activities.
This year’s contest received more than 300 entries from more than 100 media outlets for work executed last year. In the photo about South Asia or South Asians in North America section Time magazine’s John Stanmeyer will be cited for Nuclear Neighbours. The series of photos captured the divide between Pakistan and India.
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.
