News Broadcasting
NDTV announces three CEO appointments
MUMBAI: NDTV announced the appointment of three leaders to head the group’s new growth ventures.
Vikram Chandra has been appointed as the CEO and managing director of NDTV Networks PLC, a 100% subsidiary incorporated in United Kingdom. Smeeta Chakrabarti will serve as the CEO of NDTV Lifestyle Ltd and Rahul Deshpande will take on the mandate of CEO of NDTV Labs ltd, the software and technology company.
In his role as CEO of NDTV Networks, Chandra will be responsible for the group’s new business initiatives worldwide comprising entertainment, lifestyle, convergence, outsourcing, new channels set up in different countries and software/technology development. Chandra will report to the CEO of the NDTV Group KVL Narayan Rao and to the Board of Directors of NDTV Networks.
Chandra has been leading the company’s growth initiatives for the past one year and has played a significant role in incubating several of these businesses. He has served as CEO of ndtv.com, the company’s internet and mobile content operations and as Managing Editor of NDTV Profit, the business news channel.Chandra will continue as an anchor and senior journalist on NDTV Profit.
The group also announced the CEO of NDTV Lifestyle Ltd Smeeta Chakrabarti. NDTV Lifestyle will be responsible for launching new channels under the lifestyle genre.
Smeeta has been with NDTV since its incorporation 18 years ago and will continue to carry out her group level responsibilities as head of operations for the NDTV Group.
Rahul Deshpande has been appointed the CEO of NDTV Labs ltd. NDTV Labs will develop market and sell software and technology products and solutions created by in-house specialists that Deshpande will lead.
Deshpande was earlier CTO of NDTV and has been heading engineering and IT for over 12 years.
The group had announced the appointed of NDTV Group CEO KVL Narayan Rao earlier in the month.
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.
