News Broadcasting
Miditech wins two Rapa awards for ‘Deal…’ and ‘M.A.D’
MUMBAI: Miditech has won two awards in the 31st All India Radio & TV Advertising practitioners’ Association (Rapa) Awards 2005. The first one is for Sony’s Deal Ya No Deal, which won in the game show category in Hindi and the second for Pogo’s Music Art Dance (M.A.D) in the children’s serial category.
Deal Ya No Deal, which is in its third season is a show that tests a contestant’s ability to make the right choices and survive in a game of luck, risk and tension, given a choice of 22 cash boxes, which might have anything up to Rs 10 million. Rajeev Khandelwal now hosts the show, which was earlier being hosted by R Madhavan and then Mandira Bedi.
International versions of Deal Ya No Deal have enjoyed high viewership worldwide including Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Chile, Croatia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Israel, Mexico, the Middle East, the Netherlands, Russia, Turkey and Thailand.
M.A.D. is a unique, refreshingly original and exciting series for pre-adolescent children. Each week, with the help of a couple of mini M.A.D. kids, our hosts, explore a theme through music, art and dance. Whether it be using familiar items to create innovative and engaging things, trying stunts like using their whole bodies as paintbrushes, creating musical acrobatics and rhythmic dancing or looking through the viewers gallery, we always take our audience with us, encouraging kids to re-evaluate the things they see and hear every day.
The Rapa is one of India’s oldest associations of media professionals. It came into existence over 31 years ago and has contributed significantly towards promoting audio visual works of excellence. Every year the awards function recognises and honours outstanding radio and television productions and the people who create them.
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.
