News Broadcasting
Husband-wife duo Pankaj Kapoor, Supriya Pathak take the comedy cake
MUMBAI: One of the charming sidelights of this year’s MTR Foods Indian Telly Awards 2003 was the husband-wife duo of Supriya Pathak and Pankaj Kapoor winning the award in the same category of Best Actor In A Comic Role.
Satish Shah giving the best actor in a comic role award to Pankaj Kapoor
Says Pankaj Kapoor, who won this honour for the second consecutive year, “It’s always great to win an award. But this year it’s special because my wife has won it too. That’s really great. But I wish that television would take comedy more seriously than they do right now.”
Supriya Pathak receiving the award for the best actress in a comic role
Winning the best female actor in a comic role was special for Supriya Pathak. “I never thought of comedy as my forte. I have always been known as a tragic actress. But I must say that the character of Hansa is so lovable and sweet that it’s been very easy to fall in love with her. Hansa is everything Supriya Pathak isn’t in real life. And that’s why it’s been a huge challenge to enact her.”
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.
