News Broadcasting
Jeff Zucker is NBC Universal TV CEO
MUMBAI: NBC Universal Television has announced restructuring. Jeff Zucker who used to produce the Today show is its CEO behind company chairman Bob Wright.
Zucker will oversee NBC, including its entertainment, news and sports divisions, and cable networks like CNBC, MSNBC, USA, Bravo and Sci Fi.
Zucker was quoted in media reports noting that recent deals NBC made with Apple where shows can be viewed on ipod and DirecTV to sell reruns of network programming were completed by different executives. That wont be the case in the future, he said.
The move comes at a time when NBC is looking to regain lost ground. At one time it was the number one network in the US. Today however it trails behind CBS and ABC as far as total viewers are concerned.
The difficulty for NBC has been in finding replacements for hit shows like Friends which came to an end. Next year another popular sitcom Will and Grace comes to an end.
Executives who once reported to Wright will now report to Zucker – including Randy Falco, who as president of NBC Universal has largely run the company’s business side, NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol and Jay Ireland, who ran the NBC owned television stations.
NBC feels that having distribution and commercial aspects lined up with the content will make it more effective.
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.
