News Broadcasting
IBN18 Q2 standalone net loss at Rs 598.7 mn
MUMBAI: IBN18 Broadcast Ltd widened its standalone net loss to Rs 598.66 million for the quarter ending September. The company had posted a net loss of Rs 175.76 million in the year-ago period.
The standalone results constitute the financials of CNN IBN and IBN7.
For the quarter under review, total income fell 12 per cent to Rs 408.46 million, as against Rs 464.48 million a year ago. Expenses were at Rs 574.56 million, up marginally by 2.13 per cent.
The company incurred exceptional expenses of Rs 296.74 million, as option premium paid by IBN18 through its wholly owned subsidiary which had been written off as impairment.
Operating loss widened to Rs 166.10 million in the quarter, as compared to Rs 98.09 million in the prior-year period.
IBN18’s consolidated net loss stood at Rs 823.68 million. Total income was at Rs 1.37 billion, while expenditure stood at Rs 1.73 billion for the quarter.
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.
