News Broadcasting
Disney/ABC Names Pastor SVP, Strategy, Oversees Research
MUMBAI: Paul Pastor, who has helped manage Disney’s investment in Hulu and overseen digital and international initiatives, will add oversight of research for the ABC network and other properties to his portfolio.
He absorbs the duties held by Charles Kennedy, senior vice president of research, who is leaving the company to pursue another opportunity.
As senior vice president of strategy and consumer analytics for Disney/ABC Television Group, Pastor will report to Peter Seymour, the executive vice president and CFO of the division. His research responsibilities include ABC Family, ABC Studios and the Disney/ABC syndication arm in addition to the broadcast network.
He will continue to oversee strategic initiatives for the Disney/ABC groups along with customer relationship marketing and network media planning.
Seymour stated that with, “Digital proliferation, Big Data and rapidly evolving consumer behavior, the worlds of CRM, planning, strategy and research are increasingly interwoven.” He cited Pastor’s “close working relationship with our research teams and the ABC businesses” as a strong fit.
Kelly Pena, who oversees research for Disney Channels Worldwide, will continue in her role reporting to Seymour.
Pastor joined Disney in 2007 in a business development role for the Disney Channels and took his current role as vice president of strategy, CRM and media planning last fall.
Early in his career, he held positions at Accenture, a management consulting firm, and at Technicolor, where he was focused on the expansion of the firm’s gaming and animation services businesses into global markets.
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.
