News Broadcasting
Nat Geo Intl commissions two hour global special on ‘Bin Laden’s Spy’
MUMBAI: Following the success of the documentary special Inside 9/11, National Geographic Channels International (NGCI) and National Geographic Channel have commissioned Towers Productions for a two-hour special Bin Laden’s Spy in America.
Bin Laden’s Spy in America, details the secret case of an Islamic fundamentalist who joins the US Army while playing a key role in terrorism plots on the road to 9/11. The two-hour documentary will premiere in the US on 28 August and internationally on 10 September 2006.
NGCI executive VP content Sydney Suissa says, “This is an unknown and astounding story of the deception that allowed 9/11 to happen. It’s far more riveting than any spy novel could ever be”.
The film tells the story of an ex-Egyptian Special Forces major who infiltrated the US intelligence community while working for terrorist organisations like Egyptian Islamic Jihad and al Qaeda. He successfully enlisted in the US Army despite having been listed as a suspected terrorist on a State Department’s watch list.
While serving in the US Army, he provided training to several of the terrorists who took part in the 1993 World Trade Center attack. He also compiled an al Qaeda terror manual using information from documents taken during his stay at Fort Bragg; and coordinated bin Laden’s relocation from Afghanistan to the Sudan. He later became an FBI informant at around the same time that he was training terrorists in al Qaeda camps in the Middle East.
The documentary is in part based on the upcoming investigative book Triple Cross by Peter Lance. Following its premiere, Bin Laden’s Spy in America will be available for international distribution at the television event Mipcom, which takes place in Cannes in October.
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.
