News Broadcasting
Republic TV retains lead as Times Now narrows gap
BENGALURU / MUMBAI: The on-air spat continued unabated as the Broadcast Audience Research council of India (BARC) released it numbers to its paid subscribers for week 26 of 2017 (Saturday, 24 June 2017 to Friday, 30 June 2017) at 11am on Thursday.
When BARC released public data, it was observed that while there was an increase from 868 to 965 impressions (000s) Sum — a difference of 97. Times Now, albeit at the second position, grew in impressions from 670 to 868 — a difference of 198 impressions (000s) Sum. India Today Television and CNN News18 interchanged their positions and this week featured at the third and fourth positions, respectively.
Earlier, at 11am telecast, both channels continued to claim numero uno status in the English New genre on air, bandying their own interpretations of the statistics. BARC numbers of the top 5 English News genre channels (All India (U+R) : NCCS AB : Males 22+ Individuals) that are released at 1300 hours in the public domain show the new entrant Republic TV continued to lead ratings in week 26.
Republic TV led the table at first place with 9,65,000 weekly impressions followed by once upon a time leader Times Now with 8,68,000 weekly impressions in week 26 of 2017. Following as if by rote at number 3 was India Today Television with 4,51,000 weekly impressions. Network 18’s English News channel CNN was placed fourth with 3,80,000 impressions followed by NDTV with 3,44,000 weekly impressions.
Right from the time it was launched in week 19 of 2017 (Saturday, 6 May 2017 to Friday, 12 May 2017), Republic TV has been leading the English News genre ratings. The channel opened its launch week, week with a bang, displacing Times Now as the genre leader, with a massive 21,18,000 weekly impressions. Times Now, the second most watched English News genre channel in week 19 trailed far behind with 11,48,000 weekly impressions. Over time, the gap between the two has narrowed down and in week 24 of 2015, the difference in the ratings of these two main protagonists in the English News genre was 28,000 weekly impressions with Republic TV’s ratings at 963,000 weekly impressions to Times Now ratings at 935,000 weekly impressions.
As reported by Indiantelevision.com earlier, the launch of Republic TV gave rise to an ugly war between the existing Indian English News channels and the new entrant. For one week, week 21 of 2017, ratings of the top Indian English news channels were not published as they had stripped their new feeds of the BARC audio watermark. The NBA-backed channels returned to the BARC fold in week 22.
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.
