News Broadcasting
Europe leads the world in the interactive TV trial
SINGAPORE: While some parts of the world are still trying to understand what interactive TV means, and some other markets are still in its infancy as in the Asia Pacific region; it looks like Europe will set the rules of the new game. With more than 380 interactive services on air in 2006, Europe clearly leads the way.
As of now there are more than 50 million digital households across Europe and experts predict the number will go up to 125 million by 2010. Also, with growing consumer spend the gross margins (not turnover) is expected to cross 700 million Euros by 2010 with growing consumer spend.
Quoting from a study conducted by AFDESI (The French professional organization for interactive television), delegate Jean Dacie said, “Europe is definitely leading the way on the ITV market with most of the technologies developed there since the first trials which started in the UK in 1994/95 and first commercial ITV services which began in France in 97.
Just a look the figures reveals that UK is the largest market with 17.8 million subscribers followed by Germany, 11.2 million and France with about 8.7 million. In recent times, France has recorded the fastest ever technology adoption by users, with about 2 million DTT households one year after its launch. While BSkyB is the most profitable platform in the world for interactive services (660 million Euros in 2005) and UK is the country that has generated the highest revenues from interactivity yet.
The study reveals that with the analog switch-off planned by national governments by around 2010, UK will perhaps emerge as the only country with the near objective with 69 per cent of digital homes, which means 125 million households in western Europe will have digital TV.
With the standalone and enhanced TV services offered by ITV, consumers are already benefiting with the use of interactive services via TV like messaging, video conferencing, on demand extension of linear advertising breaks, betting live on broadcast sports and participating in quiz shows live apart from using utilities like bank services and shopping. The study says that there are more than 150 interactive services available in the UK. While advertisers are benefiting through well-executed interactive advertisements that can deliver benefits for brands.
So, what are the business models that are driving the European digital market.
“Premium calls (calls via the return path line of the set top box are charged a premium rate)
” Subscription (users contract a monthly subscription to services)
” advertisement and sponsorship
” Indirect profitability (the service cost is entirely supported by the operator)
In the UK, with more than 8 million set top boxes at the beginning of 2006, BSkyB records an average annual revenue per user of 33 Euros for its interactive services with a long term objective of 70 euros. With the growing number of digital TV homes, this is bound to go up by leaps and bounds
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.
