News Broadcasting
Mary Hockaday is BBC Radio News deputy head
MUMBAI: Mary Hockaday has been announced as the BBC’s Deputy Head of Radio News, a new post working across the whole department in the UK. At present she is BBC Radio’s Editor of World Service News and Current Affairs.
The move follows the appointment of Ceri Thomas as Editor of Radio 4’s Today programme. Ceri and Mary both deputised for Radio News head Stephen Mitchell, will be covering domestic and world affairs respectively.
Mitchell said, “Mary has significant editorial experience both in the field and on programmes on World Service and Radio 4. I am very confident that she will now help us to transform the way we deliver our journalism across the board in the light of the major changes that are affecting our audiences and the wider BBC. Mary has been an outstanding part of the radio news family for several years and I am delighted to be able to appoint her to this important new post.”
Part of Mary’s new role will be to further enhance coverage of foreign affairs across the department. She said, “I am really looking forward to working with colleagues right across BBC Radio News, to help deliver traditional and modern news services to big and varied audiences and to help bring closer together the editorial strength and creativity of staff from across domestic and World Service news departments.”
Hockaday begins her new role at the end of the month. BBC Radio News will now seek to appoint a new editor of World Service News and Current Affairs, as well as a Radio newsgathering editor, to replace Ceri Thomas.
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.
