News Broadcasting
NBC’s Tsunami benefit concert attracts star studded lineup
MUMBAI: Tomorrow 15 January US broadcaster NBC will air a benefit concert on its channel and across the NBC Universal platforms.
Actors Brad Pitt, Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu and Robert DeNiro are among those taking part.
SBC Communications will underwrite the two-hour, commercial-free special. Performances will be available for download on Sony Connect. In association with this event, Sony’s Connect music store will offer downloads of the live performances from the concert.
All proceeds from download sales will be donated to the American Red Cross International Response Fund. Sony America will match the first $100,000 raised through domestic download sales. Downloads will be available at www.connect.com.
Meanwhile in Australia rock groups Midnight Oil and Silverchair will organise a fund-raising concert on 29 January at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
The event is called Wave Aid. Organized by six major talent managers, Wave Aid is expected to raise $1.3 million for the Australian Red Cross, Oxfam Community Aid Abroad, Unicef and Care Australia charities. Earlier the first benefit concert in the series which took place on 8 January at the Sydney Opera House, raised $15 million.
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.
