News Broadcasting
Maya to make animated feature for BBC
MUMBAI: Indian animation company Maya Entertainment Ltd (MEL) has bagged the contract to make a BBC show titled Jack Frost, a 30 minute animated feature based on a UK bestseller childrens book. The $7, 50,000 project is a 3D animation programme is scheduled for a Christmas launch on BBC Worldwide this year.
According to MEL CEO Rajesh Turakhia, “The assignment came to MEL through UKs Jack Frost Productions who are associated with BBC Worldwide. While pre-production functions like the storyboard and modeling have been done in UK, we are involved in production activities related to animating the entire show, the background elements and compositing.
MEL is also creating 10 to 12 animated fillers for popular kids channels such as Nickelodeon to be shown between programmes, each budgeted at $25,000, says Turakhia. The company is also negotiating a 26-episode television series with a European outfit. “Budgeted at $ two million, work on this project is expected to take off around October-November this year. Deliveries would start getting rolled out from 2005, says Turakhia.
MEL is currently changing its infrastructure to accommodate an additional 150 animators from its current 65 while a division of its stake holder Intel will aid in the design, restructuring and update of the hardware and software to meet the expanding client base, he says.
Maya Entertainment has also secured orders from a US firm to create a special programme based on products of a leading toy manufacturer. This show sports a budget of $250,000. MEL has also clinched a $150,000 gaming animation project from the same studio.
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.
