News Broadcasting
Mumbai, Delhi prefers action fare to sitcoms, drams
MUMBAI: The verdict is out!
The upmarket English speaking urban viewer prefers action oriented programming rather than sitcoms, travel shows or drama.
TAM data for 29 September – 5 October collated by Emediaplan, an online media planning system, for top 15 programmes on AXN, Star World and Zee English for cable and satellite households 4+ in Delhi and Mumbai have thrown up revealing figures.
In Delhi, AXN creamed the competition with 14 of the top 15 shows. Monster movie Godzilla which aired on 5 October at 9 pm topped the list with a TVR of 0.9, helped AXN garner a channel share of 5.29 and market viewership of 51.04. The channel’s monopoly was broken with Zee English’s daily sitcom Full House, entering the stakes at number 11.
The show which airs on Friday evening had a TVR of 0.2, helped Zee English grab a channel share of 2.47 and market viewership of 11.91. That viewers keenly tune in to AXN can be gauged from the fact that the two minute capsule Music Xpress too figures prominently in the list.
In Mumbai, AXN’s Guinness World Records topped the chart with a TVR of 0.8, a channel share of 2.74 and market viewership of 97.08. It had 10 programmes on the list, including the reality themed programmes Fear Factor and The Amazing Race.
Star World which drew a blank in Delhi manages to find mention three times in Mumbai. The best performance came from The Things People Do at number three. It had a TVR of 0.68, a channel share of 2.34 and market viewership of 82.52. Futurama came in at number four and its two minute capsule Star Asia Travel was way behind at number 11. Surprisingly, there is no mention of critically acclaimed shows like The Practice or Ally McBeal.
Zee English’s Full House fared slightly better in Mumbai at number seven. It had a TVR of 0.28, helped Zee English get a channel share of 1.88 and a market viewership of 33.98. Missing from the list however are the gangster series The Sopranos, the latest episodes of Friends.
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.
