News Broadcasting
Music industry loses 50% share due to piracy: Dasmunsi
MUMBAI: The vicious wave of piracy continues to eat into the revenues of the Indian music industry. According to information and broadcasting minister P R Dasmunsi, the Indian music industry has lost 50 per cent of its share between 1999-2004 primarily due to piracy.
However, Dasmunsi assured that several steps have been taken and will be taken in the future by the government to curb piracy.
According to a report by PTI, the Indian Music Industry (IMI) pegs the size of the industry at Rs 5 billion in 2004 as compared to Rs 10 billion in 1999.
Dwelling also on the much talked about issue of CAS (conditional access system) in the Lok Sabha today, Dasmunsi further said that the government has held meetings with broadcasters, cable operators, consumer organisations and other stake holders with regard to the implementation of the CAS.
“There was a broad consensus that nine-month time is required to take preparatory steps and to implement CAS smoothly and as such no exact time-frame can be indicated,” he was reported as saying.
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.
