News Broadcasting
Newsweek, Daily Beast to form JV
MUMBAI: Newsweek magazine and news website the Daily Beast are set to merge, a move aimed at turning around both the ailing organisations.
The 50:50 joint venture, Newsweek Daily Beast Co, will have Tina Brown as the editor-in-chief. Brown co-founded Daily Beast. Sidney Barman, the stereo-equipment tycoon who recently bought out Newsweek, will be the executive chairman of the joint venture. Barry Diller, chairman and CEO of Daily Beast owner IAC/InterActive Corp, will be in the board.
Incidentally, Brown has led brands like Vanity Fair and The New Yorker and has to now tackle the unpleasant task of turning bleeding entities into a profitable organisation.
After the merger, Newsweek.com will be discontinued and the URL will be redirected to TheDailyBeast.com.
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.
