News Broadcasting
Janmat to don new look as Live India
MUMBAI: Donning a fresh look, Broadcast Initiative Limited’s Hindi ‘views’ channel Janmat is being re-christened as Live India with effect from 3 August. Shedding its old look which positioned it as a ‘views’ channel, Live India will now mainly focus on live news-bulletins. In tune with its new name, the channel’s tagline is ‘Khabar Hamari Faisla Aapka.’
“With the shift in positioning the re-vamped channel will have live-bulletins all round the day. It will catch up with all the events and live happenings across the country,” says a source close to the development.
As reported earlier by Indiantelevision.com, the channel will dedicate 70 per cent of its content to news, while 20 per cent will be based on analysis and 10 per cent on interviews. The upgradation will involve an investment of Rs 400 million.
“We are re-launching the channel. We will be news rather than programme-driven. Analysis will supplement the news and not the other way round,” Janmat editor and CEO Sudhir Chaudhary had earlier told Indiantelevision earlier.
As part of its expansion plan, Janmat has added bureaus in Srinagar, Chandigarh, Bhopal, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Bhubaneswar, Kolkata and Guwahati to its existing ones in Mumbai and Delhi. The Marathi reporters of sister channel Mi Marathi will also pool in their resources.
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.
