News Broadcasting
Court refuses to bar release of ‘Nishabd’, issues notice
NEW DELHI: Refusing to stay tomorrow’s nationwide release of Nishabd, the Delhi High Court today issued notice to producer Ram Gopal Varma, his company RGV Films and the censor board, on a revision petition by Jahar Kanungo alleging Varma’s Film Factory had violated its intellectual property right to the title.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice MK Sharma and Justice Sanjeev Khanna fixed 9 April for hearing the case, which was filed challenging the order of Justice AK Sikri earlier this week rejecting the petition by Kanungo Media as time-barred, since the film Nishabd, which stars megastar Amitabh Bachchan with newcomer Jiah Khan, was cleared by the censors in June 2005.
The film has already been to several international film festivals and has received the best feature film award at Osian’s Cinefan Festival Asian Film in Delhi and the ‘Coup De Coeur Guimet Award’ at Vesoul International Festival of Asian Award.
Filmmaker Jahar Kanungo claims that he retains the copyright to the title Nishabd and had produced a Bengali film with this title ten years ago.
Nishabd, directed by Varma, tells the story of a 65-year-old man, infatuated with a girl his daughter’s age. The film also stars south Indian actress Rewati.
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.
