News Broadcasting
More regional TV channels join the petition in TDSAT against the TRAI adcap
NEW DELHI: Some more channels today joined the large number of news and general entertainment channels whose matters challenging the issues relating to the adcap sought to be implemented by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) will be heard by the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) on 31 October.
Member Kuldeep Singh of TDSAT tagged along with the other cases those by Eenadu group of Andhra Pradesh and the Sarthak Entertainment group of Odisha.
While TDSAT had on 1 October listed all matters to come up on 21 October, it had deferred this date to 31 October following a mention by News Broadcasters Association (NBA) who had earlier been given the date of 11 November for hearing the petition challenging the constitutional mandate of TRAI in the matter of adcap.
TDSAT had earlier accepted an assurance by TRAI not to take any coercive action against the channels.
Counsel for TRAI Saket Singh had told TDSAT in an earlier hearing that an anomalous situation had been created with some channels having accepted the adcap with effect from today, 1 October. It was therefore requested that the matter be resolved once for all.
The Tribunal had earlier said that while the channels will maintain weekly records of the advertising time per hour on a weekly basis, they will not be required to submit this to the regulator. Unlike the current practice, the records will only be submitted to TDSAT at the time of the hearing of the case.
At that time, Counsel A J Bhambani for the NBA had said that a delegation of the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) had submitted a formula to the regulator but that did not preclude the broadcasters from challenging the validity of the regulations.
He also said that this was only a compromise reached between the broadcasters and the regulator and could not form the basis of penal action since it was not a regulation or legal provision.
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.
