News Broadcasting
‘Focus Asia’ correspondent Adrian Brown takes first prize at Amnesty press awards
Star’s Focus Asia correspondent Adrian Brown took first prize in the English television category of the 7th Annual Amnesty International Human Rights Press Awards in Hong Kong.
This is the third successive year that Focus Asia has walked away with the esteemed award. Focus Asia correspondent Jennifer Lee took the prize in 2001 and correspondent Susan Yu won in 2000.
The 2002 award was given in recognition of Adrian Brown’s report on Child Sexploitation, which was originally broadcast on Focus Asia in April 2001. The report detailed the problem of child prostitution in Cambodia and the inability of Cambodian authorities to crack down and manage this widespread problem. In the report, Brown interviewed an American man in jail awaiting trial on child sex charges as well as a Japanese man accused of similar offences. He also interviewed a child rights campaigner who has worked to rescue under-age girls from brothels.
Adrian Brown is an experienced television journalist and has worked in Asia since 1988. He has interviewed a number of Asian leaders for Focus Asia including former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid and Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen.
Jim Laurie, vice-president of network news and current affairs, said: “We are extremely proud of this accomplishment by our Focus Asia correspondents. By taking our third consecutive Amnesty International Human Rights Press Award, we have proved that our talented team of correspondents rivals the best of any news team and that we are continuing to provide hard hitting and socially relevant reports affecting the Asian region.”
Focus Asia is the flagship current affairs program produced by Star’s news team in Hong Kong, exploring a wide range of social, economic and political issues across the Asia region. Indian viewers can see this hard-hitting programme on Star World every Sunday at 5:30 pm (8:00 pm Hong Kong time).
The 7th Annual Human Rights Press Awards were sponsored by Amnesty International (Hong Kong), the Foreign Correspondents’ Club and the Hong Kong Journalists Association, and announced on 8 June.
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.
