News Broadcasting
Parliament dissolution puts all pending media matters on hold, FM players immediate losers
NEW DELHI: With the coalition government deciding to dissolve the Lok Sabha (Lower House) on 6 February after a go-ahead for interim rail and Union Budgets are taken, it looks unlikey that any important policy decision regarding media will be taken till the poll process has been completed.
That also puts a question mark over the future of the recommendations of the Dr Amit Mitra panel on FM radio broadcast policy.
Though the information and broadcasting ministry had earlier shown some interest in taking the panel recommendations to the cabinet for a final view on some suggestions like opening up the sector to foreign investment and allowing news and current affairs programming on private FM radio stations, it lost steam somewhat as the minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, could not find the time to devote to the matter.
Once the Lok Sabha is dissolved, the ruling machinery becomes a caretaker one till the next government is installed. It is also not customary for a caretaker government to take important policy decisions like allowing foreign investment in a certain sector of the industry.
A senior government official said, “The recommendations are still being studied by the I&B ministry and it is highly unlikely that any decision would be taken now.” Though, there is some inter-ministerial meeting on the recommendations is lined up in the near future, nothing much is expected to come out of such meetings.
The FM radio industry was hoping that the government would push through with some of the recommendations of the Mitra panel, which was expected to bring some relief to the financially-beleaguered segment.
It is also unlikely that the government would take a stand on conditional access system (CAS), which is now in the domain of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India where the stakeholders of the broadcast and cable industry are now fighting out their intra-industry battle. This, despite the fact that the Delhi high court is slated to have a hearing on a case related to CAS on 5 April.
The dissolution of the Lok Sabha also brings down the curtain on the work on the proposed broadcast bill as well.
What looks interesting is that if the present coalition government, headed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is voted back to power the Convergence Bill may be brought out of cold storage. And if Arun Shourie gets back the telecom and IT portfolio, then he is sure to do that, political observors said.
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.
