News Broadcasting
DD acquires Asian Games telecast rights
NEW DELHI: Indian pubcaster Doordarshan is aggressively attempting to recover dues to shore up its bottomlines, while continuing to programme acquisitions of events held outside India.
The Commonwealth Games 2006 may be appearing a trifle distant, but DD has managed to swing a deal relating to Asian Games.
According to Prasar Bharati CEO KS Sarma, DD has acquired exclusive telecast rights of the Asian Games, to be held in Doha, for $ 400,000.
“Last time we had paid about $ 350,000 and the hike in the rights prices of Asian Games looks reasonable, unlike Commonwealth Games, for us,” he added.
DD may have acquired the Asian Games, but its marketing still remains open to criticism.For example, in the case of Olympics, while world over TV networks made money through telecast, DDs outflow was more than inflow of money.
NOTICES TO TV CHANNELS ON OLYMPICS FOOTAGES
That there is a bid to improve revenue collection comes through clearly from the news that DD has sent notices to most private sector satellite news channels to pay up for excess footages of Olympics used by them. Reason: DD had acquired the exclusive rights for the India region.
According to Sarma,We have asked the private TV channels to pay up by 31 March,2005 as the channels concerned have used excess of footage of the Olympics than what is allowed as per international norms for free use.”
The total amount due to DD, or being sought to be recovered from private TV news channels, amounts to Rs 7 million.
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.
