News Broadcasting
IT dept raids Dainik Bhaskar offices in several cities
New Delhi: The Income Tax (IT) department conducted multiple raids in various offices of the media group Dainik Bhaskar on Thursday. The DB group has been accused of tax evasion, sources said.
According to media reports, the searches are being conducted in Bhopal, Jaipur, Ahmedabad and some other locations in the country.
While there was no official statement from the department or the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), sources said the action also involves the promoters of the major Hindi media group with operations across multiple states.
One of the largest newspaper groups in the country, Dainik Bhaskar was at the forefront of reporting on the scale of devastation in the second wave of Covid in April-May. The newspaper had published a series of reports that scrutinised the official claims made during the pandemic as patients gasped for oxygen and death toll mounted across states.
An Uttar Pradesh television channel, Bharat Samachar has also been raided.
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.
