News Broadcasting
Penn joins ‘Law & Order’ production team
CALIFORNIA: Veteran television producer Matthew Penn has joined the hit drama series Law & Order as the New York-based showrunner and executive producer.
In India, the show airs on Star World on Tuesdays at 10 pm. Penn has directed over 20 episodes of the Wolf Films/Universal Network Television series and was nominated for an Emmy for the 200th episode in 1999 with guest-star Julia Roberts.
As part of the multi-year deal, Penn will continue to direct as well as oversee the production for the series, which is shot on location in New York City.
Law & Order’s creator and executive producer Dick Wolf said, “Matthew has been one of the core group of Law & Order directors for almost a decade and he has directed many of the series’ landmark episodes. I am thrilled that he has agreed to head the New York production team”.
Last month the show celebrated its 300th episode and will enter its 14th season later this year on NBC. Penn has directed over 50 dramatic shows including Law & Order episodes, The Sopranos, NYPD Blue,.
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.
