News Broadcasting
New addition to DD family soon by the name Bharati
Prof UR Rao’s first announcement after taking charge as chairman of pubcaster Prasar Bharati’s board recently was to declare that two non-performing channels of national broadcaster Doordarshan would be shut down some time soon. Well before that a new edutainment channel with a commitment to public service broadcasting to cater to the needs of children, health, music, dance and fine arts is being launched. DD Bharati is scheduled to go on air from Republic Day, 26 January, 2002.
DD Bharati will be a 24-hour channel available on PAS-10 on transponder no C-19 and C-23, both in analog and digital mode.
The channel will feature four hours of health programmes from 6 am, followed by six hours of children’s programmes from 2 pm. The channel will also have four hours of programmes on music, dance, fine arts from 8 pm.
Doordarshan has broken up DD Bharati’s programming into three segments. The morning segment will focus on meditation, yoga, and alternative systems of medicine, discussions with experts, documentary features on health related issues, and health news. It may also incorporate a one-hour segment of live phone-ins on health issues daily, officials say.
The second segment, which will focus on children aged between four and 18 years, will telecast cartoon films, wild life films, children’s serials, counseling and sports, talent hunts, ‘antakshari’ programmes and magic shows. A unique feature would be a news bulletin ‘by children for children’. Now didn’t we hear the same one from southern animation major Pentamedia at the launch of its kids’ channel Splash?
The third segment will feature music, dance, fine arts, Indian classic music, countdown shows, event based programmes and travel shows. Folk, devotional and tribal music will also feature in this segment.
Purportedly a showcase of Indian culture, DD Bharati will focus on presenting the best of the country’s literature through telefilms and serials. There will be documentaries on Gyanpeeth and Sahitya Akademi award winners too.
Prasar Bharati has now invited private producers to make programmes under the sponsored category for DD Bharati’s prime time (8 to 10.30 pm) as well as the non-prime time slots.
The deadline for submitting programme proposals to DD is 5 pm on 9 November.
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.
