News Broadcasting
Jeeva Asianet Awards on 7 March in Cochin
MUMBAI: It’s awards time yet again and this time it comes from down South. In its fifth year now, the Jeeva Asianet Awards 2004 are scheduled to take place on 7 March in Cochin.
One of Kerela’s biggest ever film awards, the Asianet Awards honour the best of Malayalam cinema where winners are decided entirely by popular polls. The ads for the same have started appearing in major dailies like The Times of India in the northern parts of the country and The Hindu and The Indian Express in the South.
Says Asianet CEO Mohan Nair, “The Jeeva Asianet awards are the only awards that offer the highest amount of prize money to the winners. There are around 45 Malyalam movies in the competition for the Best Movie award. There is also a Lifetime Achievement award which will be awarded to someone who has been held in high esteem in the industry.”
The Best Film will get a prize of Rs 1,25,000; Best Director – Rs 75,000; Best Actor/Actress – Rs 50,000 each and winners of all other categories will get a cash prize of Rs 25,000 along with citations and trophies.
Adds Nair, “We have signed up with the Malayalam Cine Artists Association (AMMA) in Kerela and they will be providing us with artists for the awards. Popular Malayam artists will be performing at the awards this year.”
The winners of the awards in the various categories will be selected by an independent jury based on the nominations received from the Asianet viewers and general public. The nomination forms which have appeared in newspapers should be filled and sent to the Asianet office before 9 February. “Special efforts have been made by the committee so that there are no chances of the awards being rigged,” says Nair.
The awards will be aired on Asianet a week after they take place. Says Nair, “The Asianet awards have always garnered good TRP ratings for us for the five years and we expect the same this time round too.”
For the past few years, the Asianet Awards have been associated with brands like Johnson & Johnson and Lux. This time round it has been associated with Jeeva – The complete ayurvedic soap. Brands like Anchor White toothpaste and Anchor Roma switches are also associated with the awards this year.
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.
