News Broadcasting
Essel Group to expand media education venture
MUMBAI: Subhash Chandra-promoted Essel Group is planning to expand its media education venture, Zee Institute of Media Arts (ZIMA). The company will invest about Rs 350 million in the venture over a period of three years.
“Zima was launched as a high level pilot project and we are planning a major expansion of the project now. We will keep adding new courses to the curriculum apart from bolstering the facilities. The whole process will take at least three years to complete,” states Zee Interactive Learning Systems Ltd (ZILS) CEO Arun Khetan.
According to Khetan, Zima will be trying to position itself as a complete media institute through the new initiatives. “We are looking to introduces courses in the areas of radio, mass communication and various other new media segments evolving. We will be doing training programmes on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) as well,” he says.
Essel Group launched Zima in the banner of ZILS in November 2004, on an initial investment of Rs 30 million. The institute presently offers one year diploma, six months advanced certificate and six months certificate courses in the streams of direction, acting, production, editing, cinematography, writing, sound and animation-visual effects. The fees charged by Zima range from Rs 60,000 to Rs 150,000 depending on the course.
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.
