News Broadcasting
FCC restarts clock for News Corp-DirecTV review
WASHINGTON: The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) resumed its informal 180-day clock for reviewing News Corp Ltd’s plan to acquire control of US satellite television provider DirecTV, on Monday (17 November).
On 10 October, FCC had put its review on hold to seek additional information from News Corp and DirecTV’s parent Hughes Electronics Corp, as well as to conduct additional consultations with anti-trust enforcers at the US Justice Department.
News Corp had proposed acquiring for $6.6 billion a 34 per cent controlling stake in Hughes, giving it access to DirecTV’s distribution platform.
FCC Chairman Michael Powell had concerns about the deal that may require the companies to accept additional conditions to win the agency’s approval, a source familiar with the issue had said previously.
However, yesterday, Kenneth Ferree, the FCC official heading up the review, said in a letter to the companies, “The additional information sought has been submitted and we also have substantially completed our discussions with the Department of Justice.”
According to media reports, there are 30 days left on the review clock, which is not binding. Ferree has said in the past that he hopes to complete work on the deal by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, DirecTV has reported that it recently crossed the 12 million customer mark, a milestone reached after nine years in the business.
Another top satellite TV provider Dish Network stated that in its third quarter earnings it added about 285,000 net subscribers during the three-month period. Dish Network had approximately 9.085 million subscribers on September 30, the parent company EchoStar Communications Corp. said.
In October, the FCC had rejected a proposed $ 18.5 billion merger between EchoStar and Hughes.
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.
