News Broadcasting
Prasar Bharati extends soccer telecast deal with AIFF for another year for Rs 75 million
NEW DELHI: Prasar Bharati has extended by a year an agreement to telecast all football matches held under the aegis of the All India Football Federation (AIFF) for Rs 75 million.
However, at the same time it has told AAFI and other sports bodies (except Board of Cricket Control in India) that in future all arrangements with Prasar Bharati for telecast of matches will done on a revenue sharing basis.
Sometime last month, AAFI’s supremo politician Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi had opened up talks with Star India for an agreement of telecast of matches on either Star Sports or ESPN.
“We have extended by an year the agreement with AAFI for about Rs 7.5 crore (Rs 75 million), but in future we will only do deals where DD will provide the platform and the revenue will have to be shared (between DD and the various sports bodies),” Prasar Bharati chief executive KS Sarma told indiantelevision.com on the sidelines of a monthly award ceremony (for best programme and graphic work) held in Delhi today. The awards have been introduced by DD recently to encourage in-house work.
According to Sarma, the revenue sharing model will be implemented where all other sports bodies of India are concerned and these include some 16 of them like federations for basketball, table tennis, hockey and volleyball.
The rationale behind doing this: DD is providing the sports bodies with a platform which has a huge reach and, hence, instead of DD paying for the telecast of the matches, the sports bodies should also share the revenue that accrues from telecast of such matches, Sarma explained.
Dasmunshi, the AAFI strongman and a politician with enough clout, had opened up talks with Star for telecast of football matches on either ESPN or Star Sports and, according to industry sources, the Rupert Murdoch-controlled company was open to coughing up more money than Prasar Bharati.
“We are aware that AAFI was talking to ESPN and Star Sports, but ultimately decided to stick with us,” Sarma admitted.
Sarma also pointed out that “a notice of sorts has been issued” to news agencies like Press trust of India (PTI) and the United News of India (UNI) that Prasar Bharati will not pay for their services beyond a three-year contract that has been signed.
Prasar Bharati has paid about Rs 116 million to both the news agencies to access their news feeds.
Explaining the rationale behind this move, Sarma said, “Beyond 2006 we would like to use the feedbacks and news that DD (and All India Radio) correspopndents give.”
Sarma also said that even at present about 70 per cent of the DD news constitutes of news feeds from its correspondents and this should be encouraged.
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.
