News Broadcasting
India Today launches 3C to spark calmer, kinder conversations
NEW DELHI: India Today has kicked off a new experiment in public dialogue with the launch of The 3C Project, an X-first series built on candour, compassion and constructive conversation. At a time when polarisation often drowns out nuance, 3C steps in with a quieter promise: to help people talk with each other, not at each other.
The format is simple yet refreshing. Instead of heated debates and echo-chamber arguments, 3C brings people with sharply different lived experiences into one space to listen, question and search for overlap. From caste and religion to youth crime and digital exposure, the idea is to spotlight real stories and encourage real understanding. Disagreement is not a dead end here; it is the doorway to insight.
The first episode, released last week on X, tackled one of India’s most fraught subjects: caste reservation. The discussion drew a young, digitally active audience and pushed everyday perspectives into the national spotlight.
To widen the circle, India Today hosted a live X Space on 8 December at 9 pm with managing editor Marya Shakil. Over a thousand participants tuned in to share views, challenge assumptions and test their own. Within minutes, the recording crossed 200 replays. Marya summed up the spirit of the initiative by saying, “If you listen to disagree, not to dismiss, this space can rise above noise and shape how India thinks about caste, opportunity and power.”
The conversation later flowed seamlessly into her nightly show Newstrack at 10 pm, blending digital voices with primetime television and signalling a stronger two-way bridge between audience and newsroom.
With 3C, India Today reinforces its push for informed, inclusive and solutions-focused discourse across platforms. Each episode will spotlight a topic of national relevance and inspire audiences to think, pause and participate.
For a country used to arguments that heat up faster than they illuminate, 3C aims to offer something different: a space where India can talk, listen and think together.
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.
