News Broadcasting
DD Metro overhaul lures the producer brigade once again
State-owned pubcaster Doordarshan is getting gung-ho about DD Metro under new director-general S.Y. Quraishi. The reason: out of the 35 prime time slots on DD Metro all have been booked and “people are there in queue for some slots to be allotted,” Quraishi said.
A scenario that was quite common in the late eighties and mid-nineties when private producers made a beeline for DD. But then frequent changes in policy and the arbit changes in schedules led to producers fleeing the network. As well as audiences.
Last year its year long partnership with the Kerry Packer Mahendra Nahata promoted HFCL-Nine fell apart after the government decided not to further proceed with the relationship. Channel Nine – led by Ravina Raj Kohli – had taken on specific prime time slots at an exorbitant price of Rs 1210 million and branded them as Nine Gold, giving DD the look and feel of a private satellite TV channel.
Quraishi admitted that DD’s viewership may not be very high at the moment, but efforts are on to rectify this through proper tapping of data from non-cable areas where only DD reaches through its various channels.
Twelve new programmes are already on air on DD Metro and some 17 others are expected by the end of this month.
Expect the battle for Indian eyeballs to get bloodier and messier, even as Star India and Sony are launching new shows, Zee has added chutzpah to its programming and Sahara TV is going on a rampage with Hindi movies.
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.
