News Broadcasting
Nippon & Envision announce first scripted co-production ‘Connected’
Mumbai: Having announced their co-production partnership last year where the two companies plan to combine their “Western and Eastern sensibilities” to develop new scripted projects for the global market, Nippon TV – Japan’s multiplatform entertainment powerhouse and Envision Entertainment – the London-based content production company on Tuesday announced their first project together entitled – “Connected.”
“Connected” is an innovative crime drama series taking place largely online, perfect for today’s world defined by hybrid communication. The concept was inspired by Nippon TV’s successful scripted series “Double Booking,” produced and broadcast in 2020 during the height of the pandemic, and the same production team led by Nippon TV’s creative director Itaru Mizuno is participating in this project, said the statement.
The worldwide format rights for “Connected” will be offered for the first time at the upcoming Series Mania Forum with a special showcase set for 22 March in Lille.
“What we believe is strong about ‘Connected’ is its relatability you may see in young fresh heroes and their struggles, not necessarily charismatic but charming, and that is how these multilayered and globally expanding stories are told through online and offline world just like how we experience these days,” commented Nippon TV business producer for international business development Sayako Aoki. “We will be thrilled to see Japanese ‘episode zero’ lead to UK version and to numerous more opportunities, diversifying the universe invented through this East-West collaboration.”
The Japanese version of “Connected” will air in Japan on Nippon TV in April. Envision Entertainment and Nippon TV are simultaneously in advanced development for a UK version of the series, which is set in the same shared universe.
“We are immensely proud of our work with Nippon TV on ‘Connected,’ an infinitely flexible crime format which can combine stories in any number of languages and territories in an unobtrusive and believable way,” said Envision Entertainment chief content officer Michael Nakan. “Our unique approach to hybrid communication between characters is a million miles away from forced ‘Europudding’ co-productions and offers a genuinely seamless opportunity to tell stories with local resonance and international scale. We look forward to working with partners around the world to develop a truly global group of homebound detectives.”
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.
