News Broadcasting
Nielsen launching new New York ratings system Thursday
MUMBAI: Media research giant Nielsen has scheduled their New York launch of the controversial modified television ratings system for Thursday, 3 May. The launch, which was earlier scheduled for 8 April, got postponed after it encountered harsh criticism from various minority groups.
Nielsen has been facing flak over the new system which has people meters replacing the paper diaries Nielsen has provided to viewers in local markets since 1950, as well as set-top boxes that are not as technically sophisticated.
Nielsen has now attempted to mellow the growing criticism by promising to keep its old measurement system of hand-written diaries and older electronic gauges running for another three months in addition to its new “people meter” system, which it will launch Thursday.
But even that move has not gone down well with Hispanic groups such as the Hispanic broadcaster Univision Communications Inc. which has panned the compromise as a confusing move that would still exaggerate English-language viewing.
“Running both systems will confuse advertisers and the public, waste time and money with duplicative and conflicting data, and debase the value of Nielsen research,” observed a statement from the broadcaster.
The point critics have been making is that people meters undercount minority audiences, cutting ratings for minority-focused shows. The old system of measuring detailed local viewer habits through pen-and-paper diaries was used during the key “sweeps” periods of ratings races and a few other times in major markets.
In their turn, Nielsen has been alleging that the whole controversy has been raked up by media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Ltd. whose Fox television stations in cities like New York and Los Angeles stand to lose local ratings through the more accurate people meters. News Corp and a coalition of civil rights activists have been demanding an independent review to verify the new system’s accuracy and are seeking to block the new system until then.
Meanwhile, the television committee of the Media Relations Council, an industry group, has said that it had declined to endorse the system. Nielsen claims that the group has only delayed their approval for the system.
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.
