News Broadcasting
HTMT looking at acquisitions, appoints Thiagarajan as CEO, MD
MUMBAI: HTMT, at its annual general meeting (AGM), informed its shareholders that the company is actively looking out for acquisition opportunities in BPO space and the IT Services segment to increase its business, domain expertise, geographical presence and customer base.
The company’s shareholders also approved the appointment of K Thiagarajan as the company’s managing director and CEO with effect from 1 October 2004. Thiagarajan, who had earlier joined HTMT as COO on 16 June 2004, brings with him rich experience in the IT sector.
As a step towards adopting a global delivery model, HTMT had recently acquired majority control in Customer Contact Centre Inc (c3), a Philippines-Manila based call centre company. Commenting on the HTMT’s inorganic growth strategy, Thiagarajan said, “The key requirement of the Global delivery Model is to have multiple offshore delivery centers capable of providing Geographical diversity to the clients. With c3, HTMT has now 3 offshore delivery centers in two countries. We are now looking to consolidate our presence in onshore centers like New York, US.”
During the AGM, the company’s management made a presentation covering the milestones in the company’s evolution from a finance company to a leading ITES-BPO company, business trends in the IT/ITES-BPO, cable television distribution, media content and broadband Internet segments and the focus areas for the current year in each of these businesses.
The shareholders also approved a final dividend of Rs 2.50 per share (25 per cent) for FY 2003-04. This would make a total dividend of Rs 7.50 per share (75 per cent), including the interim dividend of Rs 5 per share (50 per cent) already paid earlier in the month of March 2004.
HTMT had reported a total income of Rs 1.62 billion for FY2003-04 compared to Rs 1.14 billion for FY2002-03, an increase of 42 per cent. The net profit grew by 22 per cent from Rs 620 million to Rs 760 million.
The consolidated revenues had increased by 32 per cent from Rs 2.17 billion to Rs 2.85 billion. The consolidated net profit for the year ended 31 March 2004 at Rs 840 million represents an increase of 45 per cent over the previous year’s net profit of Rs 580 million.
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.
