News Broadcasting
Dua hosts NDTV India’s ‘Khabardar’
MUMBAI: NDTV India is taking its association with noted news anchor Vinod Dua beyond the elections.
Khabardar, which launched yesterday (19 July) sees Vinod Dua taking the public through a veracity-check of those promises made by the politicians in the just-concluded elections.
In the 30-minute show, Dua “leads alert citizens on an interactive march against corruption and complacency”. The show on airs from Monday through to Thursday at 8:30 pm.
Khabardar will allow viewers to collectively issue a post-election report card to the MPs. The viewers can grill MPs through SMS and e-mail about campaign promises not delivered, and vote on issues relevant to MPs. Politicians will be in the studios to field these questions, and to explain their party positions.
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.
