News Broadcasting
MarVista inks sales deals at first MIP appearance
CANNES: MarVista Entertainment, a newly formed distribution and production company attending its first MIP has sold several of the company’s recent acquisitions at the ongoing MIP market.
An action adventure 26 episode series Stone Undercover has been sold to Rainbow Television Corporation in the Middle East which has secured all rights, while the Encore Channel in China has licensed the pay TV and cable rights for the series, according to MarVista Entertainment managing director Fernando Szew.
A 10 DVD series Rockthology, a collection of the best of rock, including exclusive, uncensored interviews and featuring music videos and concert performances has been licensed to DreamTime in Japan, Multi Media in Benelux, CMV LaserVision in Germany, Spectrum DVD in Korea, PIM Group in Taiwan and Force Video in Australia.
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.
