News Broadcasting
‘India’s first’ global multicast news hub – Live Times – to launch soon
Mumbai: Live Times is another player moving into the bustling-with-competition Hindi television news space. Founder Dilip Singh and his investors have no fears and are gung-ho about the opportunity, despite the fact that many news channel bosses have been complaining about a tight squeeze on revenues and profitability this year.
“The Indian news industry is on the cusp of a historic transformation,” said Singh, who has about 35 years of experience in media having worked for several years with Jain satellite television. “It’s India’s first advanced global multicast news hub. The hub will power multiscreen multi stream delivery across D2C, FAST and OTT platforms and other future delivery platforms.”
Technology aside, the focus, points out Singh, is going to be on delivering news with steadfast integrity.
“We will be seamlessly integrating state-of-the-art technology with an unwavering commitment to truth and transparency,” added Singh. “Guided by the core Indian values of Satyam Shivam Sundaram, Live Times will work tirelessly towards providing high quality, unadulterated news and information to its viewers from local to global levels.”
The news channel is based on a Juniper L3 IT and IP backend; the news broadcasting infrastructure based on Grass Valley gear, with graphics from a high-end Ross Video system, top-of-the-rung Panasonic ENG and NDI cameras, with studio cameras being the latest Grass Valley models with newscasters having access to an active Panasonic LED wall.
Live Times is going to be launched soon and will be beaming off Insat’s GS-30 satellite giving it coverage up to down under. It will offer live news between 6 am and 11 pm daily.
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.
