News Broadcasting
Govt. scheduled to reintroduce CAS bill Thursday
NEW DELHI: The conditional access system issue will be reintroduced in the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Parliament) on Thursday, the information and broadcasting ministry announced this evening.
There is still no word as yet though whether the government has managed to work out a consensus on the contentious matter. It was because I&B minister Sushma Swaraj was not sure of getting a consensus to ensure passage through the Rajya Sabha the Cable TV Networks (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2002, that it was not introduced last week.
Swaraj decided to withdraw the bill for wider consultations last week after it became clear that Opposition leaders (with the tacit support of some influential ruling party members) would not allow the bill’s passage without wider discussions.
According to the information available, the left party CPM’s Nilotpaul Basu is slated to speak on the amendment being sought by the government in the Cable TV Networks Regulation Act, 1995.
The amendments to the Act were passed in the Lok Sabha (Lower House) on 15 May through a voice vote.
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.
