News Broadcasting
NDTV 24×7 available on StarTimes in Africa
NEW DELHI: Expanding its presence in the African region, NDTV’s flagship English news channel NDTV 24×7 is now also available on leading African pay TV operator Star Times.
NDTV head – network distribution & affiliate sales Rahul Sood said: “NDTV 24×7 was the first Indian news channel to launch on DStv, and we are pleased to now also join hands with Star Times to serve their subscribers with our award winning news coverage from the best journalists and News production team in India.” “This is in addition to many cable operators who also carry our channels in their countries like Nigeria and Tanzania,” he added.
StarTimes vice-president and managing director of media division Michael Dearham said: “We are very pleased to welcome NDTV 24×7 in our platform, reflecting the ambition of Star Times to always offer more diversified high quality content.”
The platform carries over 440 TV channels, including quality international third party channels, most popular African local channels and StarTimes owned-and-operated channels. The platform also offers all genres of content, ranging from news, movies, sports, entertainment, kids programs, music, life style and religion. The channels are broadcast in 10 different languages, such as English, French, Portuguese, Africa local languages and Chinese.
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.
