News Broadcasting
DD struggles to meet revenue target; Quraishi blames cricket
NEW DELHI: Doordarshan is “struggling” to meet its annual revenue target, a senior official of Prasar Bharati said today.
While speaking to the journalists about Doordarshan’s programming line up for Gulf War coverage in collaboration with Saeed Naqvi’s Third Eye, Doordarshan director-general SY Quraishi today admitted: “I know it’s already February, but we are struggle a bit to meet our (annual) revenue target.”
According to Quraishi, during the last financial year, which ended on 31 March 2002, DD had netted a total revenue of about Rs 625 billion.
Quraishi reiterated that the fall in the revenue this year is because of the “unrealistic” high amount of money that had come in last year, courtesy two deals that have fallen apart now. The two deals, which he mentioned, were the HFCL-Channel Nine deal for DD Metro and Budha Films’ marketing rights for cricket on DD.
Quraishi also pointed out that because of the poor performance of the Indian cricket team at the World Cup, revenues of the national broadcaster may get hit.
The DG said: “Looking at the continuing bad performance of Indian team, DD may end up making slightly less revenue than that projected,” adding that the revenue sharing will be also contribute to the loss. DD and Nimbus are in a 20:80 revenue sharing deal; this is apart from a minimum guarantee money promised by Nimbus for the cricket matches.
DD is airing 16 matches live on DD national, while another 27 matches are being aired on DD Metro a day after the match has being played.
Quraishi also mentioned that DD will be doing some live programming as part of its Union Budget special on 28 February. According to the data, last year’s coverage, including the Railway Budget, got DD 95 per cent viewership.
DD had been allocated Rs.800 million by the Planning Commission for fresh programming . Quraishi said that “efforts are to utilise the fund on commissioning programmes, especially for DD Bharati.”
Meanwhile, Third Eye will be getting Rs 500,000 per day for Gulf war coverage. Quraishi explained the outsourcing will be a “safe bet without risking our own employees.
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.
