News Broadcasting
Red Bee Media builds HD playout solution
MUMBAI: Red Bee Media has been contracted to playout the BBC’s High Definition (HD) technical trial that will run from mid-2006. The trial will be transmitted from the Broadcast Centre in West London, where Red Bee Media has installed a dedicated HD playout system, as part of its commitment to providing broadcasters globally with the most advanced services and technology,
The BBC’s trial HD service will be broadcast for nine to 12 months from mid 2006 on digital satellite and cable. It will also be tested on digital terrestrial on a technical trial from a London transmitter. Trial content on all plaftorms will consist of simulcasts of major events and some repeats of landmark productions, states an official release.
Red Bee Media CTO Chris Howe said: “Red Bee Media has been testing HD technologies for the past year and a half. Where we could, we future-proofed our Broadcast Centre when it was built two and a half years ago to accommodate HD services. Red Bee Media offers an end to end HD service and is excited to be playing out BBC’s HD trial”.
Red Bee Media’s new HD playout solution has been integrated by Television Systems Ltd and includes:
· Omneon HD servers
· Colledia and Omnibus software
· Probel HD mixers
· Axon Dolby E audio processing
· Pixel Power character generation
· Screen Subtitle encoder
· Miranda branding technology
Red Bee Media transmitted its first HD broadcast from its Broadcast Centre to IBC in Amsterdam in September 2004. It then transmitted a specially crafted HD DVB test channel simultaneously in Mpeg 2 and Mpeg 4 from its Broadcast Centre to Amsterdam throughout IBC2005.
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: 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.
