News Broadcasting
Globecast ties with Japan, HK, Brazil b’casters for Olympics
MUMBAI: Satellite services company Globecast has announced that it has partnered with Brazilian telecommunications group Embratel to provide broadcast services, internet and telephony for Brazilian terrestrial broadcaster, TV Globo for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.
Globecast will also be working closely with four more official Olympic broadcasting rights holders, ATV and TVB in Hong Kong and Japan’s TV Asahi and Fuji TV. Globecast will provide specifically tailored packages including satellite transmissions and SNG services for the duration of the games.
Globecast has isued a release stating that its services for rights holders form part of the its comprehensive presence at the Athens Olympics. Globecast is offering extensive facilities for non-rights holding broadcasters. Globecast claims that some of them have already contracted with Globecast for their Olympics coverage, through its Broadcast Base formed in association with UK-based Gearhouse Broadcast and Athens-based Stefi Productions.
The Broadcast Base offers non-rights holders a one-stop-shop for all of their production and broadcast requirements, including studios, work space, broadcast equipment, worldwide satellite transmissions, uplinking facilities, playout, conversion, encoding and mobile SNG facilities.
For Hong Kongs two Olympic broadcast rights holders, Globecast will provide six satellite channels with encoding equipment, uplinks and compression for free-to-air ATV and a satellite uplink for TVB. Japanese rights holders TV Asahi and Fuji TV have signed an agreement with GlobeCast to secure the use of one SNG vehicle each, complete with camera crew for the duration of the Games. This will enable both stations to film live stand ups and report on human interest stories from around the city of Athens, the release adds.
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.
