News Broadcasting
Nikhil Gandhi joins MX Media as Chief Operating Officer
Mumbai: Media veteran Nikhil Gandhi has joined MX Media as chief operating officer.
An industry leader with over two decades of experience, Gandhi will be based out of Mumbai and Singapore for this role at MX.
He will be responsible for taking the platforms to its next phase of growth by expanding its geographical reach, enhancing data driven innovation, growing the scope and scale of revenue streams, and building maximum impact for all stakeholders – be it consumers, advertisers, or internal teams across verticals, said the company in a media statement.
MX Media CEO Karan Bedi said, “Nikhil brings decades of experience in both traditional and emerging media platforms, and will be a huge asset in taking MX to the next level of rocket fuelled growth. We look forward to working closely with him.”
Gandhi joins the company from ByteDance-owned short form video app TikTok where he was leading its growth in the Middle East, Turkey, Africa, India, and South Asia. Before TikTok, he was the president and COO of Times Television Network. His earlier stints include working in media conglomerates like The Walt Disney Company, UTV Global Broadcasting, and Viacom Media Networks.
Speaking about this new role, Gandhi said, “MX Player is by far the leader in the video entertainment space. I’m super excited to join the MX team and look forward to the next phase of our growth.”
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: 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.
