News Broadcasting
PEMRA bans Geo Entertainment and ARY News
MUMBAI: A few days after the licence of Pakistan’s leading news broadcaster Geo News was suspended for a fortnight alleging it had defamed the Army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) has done the same for two other channels.
Another Geo channel, Geo Entertainment and news channel ARY News have also been asked to stop broadcasting for 30 and 15 days respectively and cough up a fine of Rs 1 crore for airing unsuitable content.
Geo Entertainment’s licence was suspended as PEMRA accused it of insulting the viewers’ religious sentiments by playing a religious song at the mock wedding of controversial Pakistani actress Veena Malik.
ARY News on the other hand was hauled up for airing shows that were anti-judiciary and disrespectful to the higher courts. The channel’s anchor Mubashir Lucman and his talk show Khara Sach have also been banned. In return the channel has stated in one of its programmes that it will challenge the ban in the court.
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.
