News Broadcasting
Modi threatens ICC of Indian withdrawal from future tourneys
MUMBAI: If nothing else, the ongoing spat between the Indian cricket board and the ICC has been the most entertaining quotathon heard in a while. And they keep coming.
In the latest salvo to be fired, the never short for words combative BCCI vice president Lalit Modi has further upped the ante saying that India is prepared to withdraw from future one-day tournaments, including the World Cup, if the ICC doesn’t let up on the matter of the MPA (members’ participation agreement).
Modi told the BBC: “It (MPA) is a unilateral agreement which gives the ICC the right to modify and amend it any time they wish.
“I’ve never seen an agreement in which one of the signatories has that right.”
“We don’t have to play all tournaments. If things don’t work out, we could choose not to play in the Champions Trophy and the World Cup,” Modi told the BBC.
For good measure, Modi also brought up the issue (yet again) of India being cricket’s economic lifeline. “If the BCCI does not sign the MPA, then the ICC’s income would be reduced to 5 per cent of what it currently is,” he claimed.
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.
