News Broadcasting
Padmalaya to launch 10 films this fiscal
MUMBAI: Padmalaya Telefilms with its new chairman-cum-managing director (CMD) Adiseshagiri Rao, is moving on to greater heights with a whopping figure of ten feature films all set to be unveiled this financial year.
The company is planning to get five Hindi films and five regional films (which break up into two Tamil films, two Telugu films and one Bengali film) off the ground. Add to this, is the much-anticipated live action cum animated film Bhagmati, in the making for eons now, which looks to be all set for an October release.
Bhagmati is being touted as the first live action cum 2D animation film to come out of Asia.
Speaking to indiantelevision.com, Padmalaya Telefilms executive director GV Narsimha Rao, gushes, “It’s almost finished now; it is now in the process of editing. This will be a big achievement, although it’s yet to be seen how the industry will respond.”Although the company is very optimistic about the initiative, a major concern that was voiced during the discussion with Indiantelevision.com was the fact that Indian audiences are not ready for cartoons and animated films.
On the television software front, Padmalaya is set to enter the Hindi fray with the backing of its parent company and media heavyweight Zee Telefilms. With an already established clout in the regional space, with 5-6 hrs of television programming in Tamil and Telugu, Padmalaya is testing the waters with Zee.
Discussions are on regarding the production of content for the Zee umbrella. Padmalaya will be producing a number of shows for Zee this year. On the regional front, they are producing a show each for Maa TV, Gemini TV, ETV and Visa TV, the Telegu channels and are also in negotiations with Sun TV, the Tamil channel.
With all the progress that Padmalaya seems to have made on the animation front translating into all their major overseas deals, the film and TV software arms of the company have also not been left behind. The company seems to have an interesting vision for the year 2004-05, hoping to be a significant player in all three fields.
Some may call it blind optimism, but by the looks of it, Rao seems to be reaching for the stars. GM Krishna, the former CMD of the company, interestingly is himself a very renowned actor in the south credited with over 325 films in lead roles.
With his first love being movies, Krishna has decided to pursue his dream and now it is all left to CMD
Adiseshagiri Rao and GV Narasimha Rao to steer Padmalaya onto a higher pedestal.
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.
