News Broadcasting
Eutelsat launches India-focused satellite – W5
MUMBAI: Satellite service provider Eutelsat has successfully launched its W5 satellite and it is being positioned at 70.5 degrees East, an orbital position that allows Eutelsat to cover the whole of Asia in complement to the company’s SESAT satellite.
W5 will be operational by mid-December, according to an official release.
Equipped with 24 Ku-band transponders with 72 MHz bandwidth, W5 is configured with one fixed Widebeam covering western Europe, central Asia and the Indian sub-continent and two steerable spotbeams. The steerable spotbeams can cover north-east Asia including the whole of China and Mongolia as far as Korea and southern Japan, and south-east Asia as far as northern parts of Australia.
W5 will be capable of delivering a full range of digital communications services: video distribution and contribution links, occasional-use video and particularly Satellite News Gathering (SNG), as well as Internet backbone connections. Through a new bundled turnaround onto Eutelsat’s Digital Platforms on its HOT BIRD ?broadcasting satellites that reach an estimated 96 million cable and satellite homes, Eutelsat will also be able to offer Indian broadcasters seamless connectivity directly into Europe.
Eutelsat is also perhaps the only Satellite Company offering dedicated Ku-band connectivity to its Indian customers for India to Europe, Europe to India, and India to India through SESAT Satellite, an official release says. Eutelsat already has substantial capacity dedicated to the South Asian market with its SESAT satellite. SESAT (36oE) features a fixed widebeam that extends over the Atlantic Islands to eastern Russia. In addition, it has a spotbeam centered over India to offer single hop connectivity between east and west.
W5 Vital Characteristics
Orbital position: 70.5 degrees East
Payload: 24 Ku-band transponders
Downlink frequencies: 10.95-11.70 GHz, 12.50-12.75 GHz
Transponder bandwidth: 72 MHz
Coverages : 1 fixed Widebeam up to 46 dBW and 2 steerable spotbeams up to 48 dBW.
Lifetime: minimum 12 years
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.
