News Broadcasting
Mak TV test signal on as of 3:46 pm today
MUMBAI: The soon to be launched Manoranjan Aur Kya (Mak) Television Network officially started its test signal today at 3:46 pm (Indian time) with the uplink out of Singapore.
The six channels that will form the Mak bouquet once the network becomes fully operational are Mak Prime (Hindi entertainment), Mak Telugu, Mak Music Mak Bangla Movies, Mak Sindhi and Mak Style (fashion).
The channels will be broadcast as a digital FTA feed in the beginning before but will become encrypted in due course, Mak chairman and managing director Karan Saluja, has said.
The coordinates are:
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION
NEW DELHI
MUMBAI
SATELLITE
APSTAR-2R (TELESTAR 10)
ORBITAL POSITION (DEG E)
76.5
TRANSPONDER NUMBER
12B
SATURATION EIRPS (DBW)
39.73
40.26
CENTRE FREQUENCY
6332.5 MHZ
DOWNLINK FREQUENCY (MHZ)
4107.5 MHZ
POLARISATION
VERTICAL
SYMBOL RATE
14.2 Mbsym
FEC RATE
3/4
CARRIER TYPE
DIGITAL
DIGITAL
MODULATION TECHNIQUE
QPSK
QPSK
ANTENNA DIAMETER (FT)
8-10 FEET
ANTENNA ELEVATION (deg)
56.60
67.41
ANTENNA AZIMUTH (deg)
181.50
191.12
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.
