News Broadcasting
Fifty days of Demonetization with CNN-News18 special telethon
MUMBAI: When Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the demonetization of Rs 500 and Rs. 1000 notes and appealed to the masses to support him in his drive against black money and corruption on 8 November, the announcement was met with mixed feelings as no one knew what it entailed.
As this 50 day period comes to an end, CNN-News18 will be doing a special day-long programme in the form of a telethon on 30 December 2016 from 9 am to 8 pm.
Led by senior journalist Bhupendra Chaubey, the telethon will analyze the current scenario and try to get all sides of the NaMo’s DeMo story as it currently stands.
This will include ground reports from various parts of the country along with interaction with Union Cabinet Ministers such as Arun Jaitley, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Nirmala Sitharaman, M Venkaiah Naidu, Piyush Goyal as well as leaders of opposition parties like Kapil Sibal, Anand Sharma, Shashi Tharoor, and Nitish Kumar to name a few. The channel will also try to speak to well-known commentators on political and economic affairs like S Gurumurthy, Surjit Bhalla, Rajiv Kumar, Anil Bokil and prominent entrepreneurs like Vijay Shekhar Sharma of PayTm and representatives of other mobile wallet companies.
The channel will also leverage its exclusive partnership with CNN to bring in a global perspective on the issue.
This special telecast aims to provide an overall perspective on the demonetization exercise and will provide a unique platform for the common man to raise their concerns and voice their opinions.
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.
