News Broadcasting
News channels want longer security clearance period: Tewari
Mumbai: News broadcasters have approached the ministry of information and broadcasting to increase the number of years they get security clearance for the channels they run. This was revealed by I&B minister Manish Tewari today in the Lok Sabha in reply to a question, says a Press Trust of India report.
Current regulations put the security clearance given to a company and its directors validity period at three years, and the News Broadcasters Association has made a representation to the I&B ministry to extend it as it makes things difficult for them, disclosed Tewari.
Adding to the news broadcasters woes is the Ministry of Home Affairs’ (MHA) decision that a media company should apply for fresh clearances for a new channel even if the firm has got security permissions earlier. Permissions for uplinking and downlinking of channels are issued for 10 years, and hence this has created an anomalous situation.
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.
