News Broadcasting
Kindergarten kids donate to Star News Tsunami relief fund
MUMBAI: The Star News Tsunami relief fund has seen some unexpected donations from Kangaroo KG school in Mumbai. Twenty eight kids from the school visited the Star News office recently to donate Rs 22,000 to the relief fund.
The effort was noteworthy considering the children had painstakingly collected the money in their piggy banks and parted with it willingly as a work of conscience. The money was handed over by Kangaroo KG school trustee Archana Goenka to Star News anchor Mandira Swahney Fernandes. As a special treat, the kids were taken on a tour around the Star News property.
Star News set up the relief fund in an urgent response to alleviate in some measure the plight of the victims of the Tsunami devastation. The channel has also pledged Rs 1 million to endorse its own commitment to the cause and to appeal to all concerned citizens to donate generously.
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.
