News Broadcasting
Rajdeep Sardesai floats Broadcast News
MUMBAI: Rajdeep Sardesai’s new venture, in collaboration with TV 18 Group, will be called Broadcast News.
This new venture will launch television channels in the news and information space.
“The Indian news market is rapidly expanding and there is huge potential for new media properties in this space. We believe this venture is ideally positioned to exploit and leverage these opportunities, and we hope to have the support and the goodwill of the Indian viewers,” says Sardesai in a media release.
Joining Sardesai in the new venture is also Sameer Manchanda, who was chief financial officer at NDTV. Sardesai, who was the managing editor, had put in his papers on 16 April while his last day was 18 April.
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.
