News Broadcasting
Sagarika Ghose tweets goodbye to CNN-IBN
MUMBAI: Like so many others before her, she took to Twitter to announce her departure from the network she has been associated with for so long. CNN-IBN deputy editor Sagarika Ghose tweeted late on the night of 3 July: “Goodbye CNN-IBN. God bless!”
Sagarika had gone on leave with her husband IBN18 editor in chief Rajdeep Sardesai last month and expectations were that she would return if one went by the email he had sent out to his team about their departure.
Speculation, however, was that she would not return to the channel – part of the Network18 group, now owned by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries – and would probably hop over to the Aroon Purie and TV Today Network owned English news channel Headlines Today.
It is not known whether Rajdeep too will be following in the footsteps of his wife and announcing his departure from the news network, but once again speculation is that it is only a matter of time. Apparently, he has an offer to pen a book from Penguin.
Sagarika is the daughter of former DD director general Bhaskar Ghose, who strove to change the face of the pubcaster.
Meanwhile, even as she posted her farewell on Twitter and in a message, her husband announced on Twitter that he is “reading Dilip Kumar bio and listening to SJ/Mukesh/Shailendra classic: yeh mera deewanapan hai.. Bliss! Gnight, shubhratri.”
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.
