News Broadcasting
I&B minister Anurag Thakur launches Broadcast Seva Portal
Mumbai: Union minister of information and broadcasting Anurag Singh Thakur on Monday launched the Broadcast Seva Portal in New Delhi to facilitate ease of doing business in the broadcasting sector. Broadcast Seva Portal is an online portal solution for speedy filing and processing of applications of broadcasters for various kinds of licenses, permissions, and registrations.
The 360-degree digital solution will facilitate the stakeholders in seeking permissions, applying for registration, tracking applications, calculating fees and executing payments. The services will be provided under the wider umbrella efforts of Digital India to all stakeholders including private satellite TV channels, teleport operators, MSOs, community and private radio channels.
The Broadcast Seva Portal aims to bring transparency, accountability, and responsiveness to the ecosystem, with all information being made available on a single dashboard.
Various services and features of the portal include end-to-end processing, integration with payment system (Bharat Kosh), integration with e-office and stakeholder ministries, analytics, reporting and Management Information System (MIS), integrated helpdesk, application forms and status tracking, downloading letters/orders from the portal itself, and alerts to stakeholders (SMS/e-mails).
Speaking on the occasion, Thakur said the government has harnessed technology to bring transparency to the system and make it more accountable. “The Broadcast Seva Portal will reduce the turnaround time of applications and at the same time will help applicants track their progress. It will reduce the human interface that was required earlier and thus add to capacity building of the ministry and will be a major step towards ease of doing business,” he said.
The minister informed the audience that the test run of the portal has received positive feedback from end-users. Soon it will be coupled with the National Single Window System. The ministry is open to further improvements that the industry may feel are required.
MIB secretary Apurva Chandra shared that the new portal has several improvements over the previous version, having incorporated suggestions from stakeholders over a trial period of one month.
The broadcasters present at the event welcomed the launch of the portal and said that it will greatly reduce the distance an application has to travel and the effort required in the application process.
Improving India’s business climate is one of the key focus areas of the Government of India and the Broadcast Seva Portal exemplifies the Government’s commitment to ease of doing business and empowering the broadcasting sector.
“The portal is a giant leap forward in realising prime minister Narendra Modi’s mantra of ‘Minimum Government, Maximum Governance’ as this simple and user-friendly web portal provides a broadcaster with an end-to-end solution with just a click of a mouse. It will boost the business environment and empower the entire broadcast sector by directly benefiting more than 900 Satellite TV Channels, 70 Teleport operators, 1700 Multi-service operators, 350 Community Radio Stations (CRS), and 380 Private FM Channels and others,” Thakur added.
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: 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.
