News Broadcasting
PCCW, Star, ESS sign multi-year carriage agreement in Hong Kong
MUMBAI: PCCW, Star Group and ESPN Star Sports (ESS) announced yesterday that they have entered into an agreement for the carriage of ESPN, Star Sports, National Geographic Channel, Phoenix Chinese Channel, Phoenix InfoNews Channel, Star Movies and ESS Cricket Channel on PCCWs now Broadband TV.
Under the agreement, ESPN and Star Sports will be broadcast exclusively on now Broadband TV starting from 17 August. With the addition of these channels, now Broadband TV viewers will receive a total number of 58 channels (43 TV channels and 15 digital music channels).
A new and significant arrangement is for ESS to be progressively localised into Cantonese; whilst also balancing the needs and demands for leading sports from Hong Kongs English speaking audience.
PCCW Limited is the largest communications provider in Hong Kong and one of Asia’s leading IT&T players. now Broadband TV is operated by PCCW subsidiary PCCW VOD Limited.
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.
