News Broadcasting
ET Now channel share stays stagnant; UTVi surges ahead
MUMBAI: UTVi has overtaken ET Now after losing its position to the English business news channel from the Times Global Broadcasting stable in the launch week itself.
As per Tam data for week 27 (All India, C&S 25+), ET Now’s channel share has come down marginally to 5.53 per cent (from previous week’s 5.91 per cent), whereas UTVi, which had 3.98 per cent market share in week 26, went up to 5.67 per cent to regain its third position among the English business news channels.
Among the top two, market leader CNBC TV18 fell to 62 per cent channel share from previous week’s 70 per cent, while NDTV profit upped its share to 27 per cent for the week ended 4 July.
Even in metros, ET Now has lost ground to UTVi. The channel, which edged out UTVi with eight per cent share, lost one per cent in week 27. UTVi, on the other hand, climbed from six per cent share to 13 per cent in the week under review.
CNBC TV18 also shed some of its share in the metro markets to NDTV Profit. From a 67 per cent share in the previous week, it slumped to 51 per cent. NDTV Profit, in contrast, rose from 20 per cent to a 29 per cent market share.
Says UTVi VP marketing Vivek Malhotra, “Last week, what we saw was curiosity sampling for the new entrant.”
Officials from ET Now declined to comment.
More significant, however, will be next week’s data which will reveal viewership numbers for the 2009-10 Budget.
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.
