News Broadcasting
Mona Jain returns to ABP Network as president – revenue growth and business development
MUMBAI: ABP Network has brought back Mona Jain as president – revenue growth and business development, handing a battle-tested media hand the keys to its next phase of monetisation. The move signals a renewed push on revenue, sharper cross-platform deals and growth partnerships in an increasingly competitive news market.
Jain returns from Brandpulse Global, where she served as chief growth officer, and steps into a mandate squarely focused on scaling revenues and unlocking new business streams. With decades across media, advertising and brand strategy, she arrives with a reputation for turning commercial strategy into topline momentum.
Her résumé reads like a tour of India’s modern advertising story. Stints at Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited, Vivaki Exchange, Cheil Communications, Mudra Communications, Contract Advertising and Hindustan Thompson Associates have put her at the centre of big-ticket brand building and media buying. She began as a media planner in 1989 and went on to work on early launches of Pepsi and Samsung in India, later helping set up Samsung’s in-house media unit under Cheil.
Along the way she has touched brands that shaped consumer India—Pepsi, Maggi, KitKat, McDonald’s, Samsung, Hyundai, Nestlé Chocolates, Hero Puch and Micromax—building a track record in scaling visibility and squeezing more value from media spends. At Cheil, she was recognised as a top international employee and led headline-grabbing properties such as the Samsung Cup and Samsung’s IIFA associations.
Industry insiders say ABP’s bet is clear: bring in a commercial rainmaker as advertising markets fragment and digital platforms rewrite the rules. Jain’s mix of agency rigour and client-side exposure could prove handy as news networks chase smarter revenues, not just bigger ones.
The brief is simple, the stakes are not. In a market where attention is fickle and advertisers demand returns, Jain is back where she has often thrived—at the sharp end of growth.
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: 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.
