News Broadcasting
NDTV on recruitment drive for Hindi channel
MUMBAI / NEW DELHI: Prannoy Roy’s New Delhi Television (NDTV) has made official its intent to launch its Hindi news channel after March 2003, with advertisements in a national daily today.
According to the advertisement in The Times of India, NDTV will be launching its Hindi news channel , early next year.
The ad specifies that the channel is looking to hire reporters, correspondents, anchors, junior and senior editorial staff, camerapersons, engineers, graphic artists and designers. No details of the qualifications or the minimum experience required for the various posts are mentioned.
The production company obviously requires manpower only for the Hindi channel, as an entire team is already in place for the English channel it is reportedly simultaneously launching. With Aaj Tak also having advertised for personnel in various positions last month, the proposed news channels are now gearing for a hefty recruitment drive.
The ad also gives a hint towards the probable name of the Hindi news channel, NDTV World.
Efforts made by indiantelevision.com to get in touch with NDTV to know the details of the proposed news channel yielded no results.
According to broadcasting industry sources, the advertisement’s wordings also makes it clear that NDTV is likely to launch its own channels instead of tying up with a media company for Star-type contract. It is now an open secret in the industry that the NDTV-AOL Time Warner tie-up, being talked about some time back during former AOL Time Warner chief Gerald Levin’s India visit, is a closed chapter.
Industry sources also pointed out that NDTV has opened up talks with Sony Entertainment Television India for a possible distribution deal for the proposed Hindi news channel. Sony ideally would like to have a news channel in its bouquet as CNBC India’s exit from the Sony bouquet is now just a matter of time. The Sony-TV-18 (one of the shareholders in CNBC India) distribution deal also comes to an end in March, 2003.
In the meantime, NDTV has already made a start for its news channel having recruited senior TV journalist, Dibang, from Aaj Tak. It is being rumoured that some more anchors may follow Dibang to NDTV.
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.
