News Broadcasting
NBA expands television coverage with China deal
MUMBAI: The National Basketball Association (NBA) is rapidly expanding television coverage. It has signed deals in seven countries including China and Georgia. In India, NBA action airs on Star Sports.
NBA is looking to profit from the league’s growing international flavour, a Reuters report indicates. Television is the company’s first entry into any market. With the new deals, NBA action is available in 212 countries in 42 languages.
The report adds that other countries, with whom television deals have been signed include Brazil, Armenia, Poland and Lithuania. Existing television deals have been renewed in Japan, Italy, Russia, Turkey, Iceland and Germany. The China deals will place the NBA on 14 provincial networks.
Chinese Central Television (CCTV) will give the NBA access to all 314 million households in China.
In China, sports fans are increasingly becoming involved with basketball since a number of Chinese players are involved with the league. Chief among them is Yao Ming, the Houston Rockets’ Chinese center. While China is the market being looked at aggressively in Asia, Japan continues to be the biggest revenue driver in the region. This despite the fact that no Japanese player is in the NBA.
NBA commissioner David Stern adds, ”This is a huge potential market for us. When you look at the power of television and you look at the marketing and consumer product companies – from Toyota to Sony, Matsushita, you name it, you’re looking at an enormous amount of activity and potential activity. Probably we could be talking about hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars.”
The NBA is also hoping to leverage local language programming into licensing and merchandise sales. Ultimately, the NBA hopes to become a global league, the report says.
News Broadcasting
Network18 channels lead YouTube news viewership in March 2026
CNN-News18, News18 India and CNBC channels top categories with record views
MUMBAI: When the world hit refresh on breaking news, Network18’s channels were already streaming ahead. As geopolitical tensions and war-driven headlines fuelled a surge in global news consumption, the network’s digital playbook delivered big clocking record Youtube viewership across English, Hindi and business news categories in March 2026.
At the forefront was CNN-News18, which emerged as the clear leader in the English news segment with 130 million live and video-on-demand views. The channel edged past competitors such as Times of India (126.5 million), Times Now (101.1 million), India Today (88.2 million) and NDTV (77.5 million), according to Databeings data for March.
In the Hindi news arena, News18 India delivered a commanding performance, racking up a staggering 3,297 million views on YouTube. The channel comfortably outpaced NDTV India, which recorded 3,119 million views, underlining its deep reach and consistent engagement with mass audiences, as per Playboard data.
The network’s dominance wasn’t confined to general news. In the Hindi business segment, CNBC Awaaz topped the charts with 92 million views, narrowly ahead of Zee Business (90 million) and well ahead of ET Now Swadesh (57 million). Meanwhile, its English counterpart CNBC-TV18 posted a strong 58 million views, reinforcing the network’s cross-category strength.
The spike in viewership reflects a broader shift in audience behaviour, with viewers increasingly turning to digital platforms particularly Youtube for real-time updates and in-depth coverage during high-intensity news cycles. For Network18, the numbers signal more than just scale; they underline the effectiveness of a multi-platform strategy that blends speed, credibility and continuous coverage.
In a month where the news never paused, it seems viewers chose to stay tuned where the stream never stopped.
