News Broadcasting
MGM to launch 24-Hour digital movie channel in the Middle East
MGM Networks, a unit of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., has forged an alliance with the Orbit Satellite Television And Radio Network. A digital, 24-hour MGM-branded movie channel will be launched in the Middle East region. The new channel represents the 15th foreign channel in which MGM holds an equity interest.
Orbit claims to be the Middle East’s leading digital satellite platform. The launch is expected to take place in March. The MGM Movie Channel will initially be available on Orbit’s premium channel tier through a digital satellite feed across the Middle East and North Africa. The channel will show MGM blockbuster’s and other critically acclaimed films.
In India MGM already has a tie-up with the Zee Network. Zee Movies hived its English movie channel into a separate 70:30 joint venture in September 2000 where Zee held the majority stake. Zee Movies was co-branded and relaunched as Zee-MGM Movie Channel in October 2000.
MGM Networks executive V-P Bruce Tuchman said about the deal with Orbit: “This new channel venture clearly underscores the continued demand for our content abroad, in a key, growing multichannel television market, and marks the latest expansion of MGM-branded channels.”
The Orbit Satellite Television and Radio Network claims to be the world’s first fully digital, multi-channel, multi-lingual, pay-television service. Orbit provides original Arabic and international English language entertainment channels.
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.
