News Broadcasting
Panregional players to participate in Discop 2006
MUMBAI: The 2006 edition of Discop to be held from 22 to 24 June expects a good attendance due to the strong recovery of the world television programming markets and the awakening of Central Europe and Eastern Europe to production projects in addition to sales of finished product.
To be hosted at the Sofitel Atrium Hotel in Budapest, Hungary, there will be 1,300 participants from less than 400 participants four years ago.
Discop is a programming market focused especially on Central and Eastern Europe and it is attended by small- and medium-sized buyers that do not usually go to MIPTV and Mipcom. The highlights are:
* For the first time, there will be regional production presence, with a good number of local, regional and independent producing companies.
* Larger buyers will attend, including some from Western Europe.
* New players are emerging including regional distributors, new pan-regional pay TV channels and also broadcasters, from Czech Republic, Bulgaria and smaller nations.
* Several ancillary business developers will also attend, covering home video, licensing, mobile telephony and Internet. This did not happen in the past.
On the sellers side, there will be larger participation, too:
* Western Europe will be more represented than earlier.
* Latin America will be participating at full, not only with telenovelas but also offering other types of finished product and formats, cashing on the new bonanza of telenovelas and general “Latin” product in Europe.
* The countries within the region are starting to market their own product.
* More participants from the U.S. are expected, since NATPE purchased the show from Reed-Midem.
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.
