News Broadcasting
Jeremy Bowen as BBC World Middle East editor
MUMBAI: Jeremy Bowen has been appointed to the newly-created post of BBC Middle East Editor. He will take up his appointment after he leaves his current assignment in Rome.
The new role is designed to enhance BBC’s audience’s understanding of the Middle East; and to provide extra commentary, focus and analysis to an increasingly complex area of the world. The editor will serve all of the BBC’s news outlets, including radio, television, BBC News Online, and BBC World.
In order to provide a broader perspective on wider Middle East issues, Bowen will be based in the World Affairs Unit in London, but will travel extensively throughout the region. Bowen brings to his new post considerable experience of the region, having spent five years in Jerusalem as the BBC’s Middle East correspondent from 1995 to 2000.
Last year he was part of the BBC team that won the Sony Gold award for News Story of the Year, on Saddam Hussein’s capture. He has also made two documentaries on Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. In 1996 he won an RTS award for his coverage of the assassination of the Israeli Prime Minister Rabin.
Most recently he presented BBC One’s Jeremy Bowen on the Front Line, which explored the lives and motivations of war journalists. This came from his rich experience as a seasoned war correspondent, reporting from more than 70 countries, and covering conflicts in the Gulf, El Salvador, Lebanon, the West Bank, Afghanistan, Croatia, Bosnia, Chechnya, Somalia and Rwanda, Iraq, Algeria and Kosovo.
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.
