News Broadcasting
India England series holds on to ratings
MUMBAI: Holding on to the cricket loving audience. That is what the first test match in the India England series has managed to do. Tam figures indicate that the ratings achieved were similar to what had been done when India played Sri Lanka last year and only slightly less than what was achieved when India toured pakistan..
Tam data c&s 4+ shows that for the first test match DD had a rating of 1.6 while Sahara One managed a rating of 0.9. This is similar to the ratings that the India Sri Lanka test series got last year.
DD had a rating of 1.6 while Zee Sports had a rating of 0.8. Of course one must consider the fact that Sahara One has better connectivity than Zee Sports. Where Sahara One fared better was in the Hindi Speaking Markets. It managed a rating of 1.3 compared to the 0.9 that Zee Sports managed during the India Sri Lanka test matches.
The good news is that the test ratings for the India England series was only slightly less than what Ten Sports managed for the India Pakistan tests which was 2.9 c&s4+. The India England series delivered 86 per cent of the audience for the India Pakistan series c&s4+.
Test cricket rates better among men. For males c&s ABC 15+ DD managed a rating of 2.2 while Sahara One managed a rating of 1.2. The India Sri Lanka test series managed a rating of 2.3 on DD and 1.2 on Zee Sports. Ten Sports got a rating for 4.3 for the India Pakistan test matches.
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.
