News Broadcasting
ESS-InCable parleys to continue Friday
MUMBAI: There is still no agreement in place between Hinduja Group MSO InCableNet and ESPN Star Sports regarding the new annual contract for the year 2004 – effective from 1 January. But the day ended with a significantly higher chance of a deal being thrashed out on the morrow than when it began.
ESS affiliate sales VP Srichand Iyengar said agreement had been reached with InCable most issues but a sticking point still remained over the demand by the sports broadcaster for payment guarantees. While the details of the payment terms were not spelt out it would appear that ESS is seeking either bank guarantees or letters of credit that could be encashed in the event of payments not coming through.
Speaking to indiantelevision.com late in the evening, InCable officials expressed confidence that a deal would be reached when the talks resume tomorrow.
If however, the talks should fail, then the switch-off this time round will be quite different from earlier ones in that it will cover the whole country wherever InCable has a presence rather than Mumbai alone. This is because the discussions that are going on at present are aimed at reaching a comprehensive agreement that is applicable across the country.
If no deal is reached, InCable subscribers in Mumbai, Delhi, Baroda, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Indore, Nagpur, Hyderabad and some other centres will be hard hit.
Deal or no deal, it appears highly unlikely that the first match of the triangular One-Day cricket series featuring hosts Australia, India and Zimbabwe, which takes place tomorrow, will be affected.
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.
