News Broadcasting
IBN Lokmat Q1 narrows net loss to Rs 40 mn
MUMBAI: Marathi news channel IBN Lokmat has narrowed its first-quarter net loss to Rs 40 million as revenue jumps over the earlier-year period.
A joint venture between IBN18 and Lokmat Group, IBN Lokmat had kicked in losses of Rs 70 million in the year-ago period.
Income from operations jumped 194 per cent to Rs 40 million, from Rs 10 million in the first quarter of FY‘10.
Revenue, however, has dropped from the trailing quarter which had seen an income of Rs 50 million.
Operating loss (Ebitda) dropped to Rs 30 million, from Rs 60 million in the prior year. However, it was higher than Rs 20 million posted in the trailing quarter.
IBN Lokmat‘s expenses remained flat at Rs 70 million, indicating that costs had more or less stabilised.
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.
