News Broadcasting
Sahara news rejigs personnel
MUMBAI: In line with the restructuring happening in the overall Sahara group’s media business, the news segment too is undergoing changes with an endeavour to create synergy in the editorial line-up and several changes have been effected with effect from Friday.
Rao Birendra Singh, who had been looking after Sahara Samay U.P (the Uttar Pradesh-specific news channel), has been elevated and given additional responsibilties of Sahara Samay Rashtriya, the national news channel.
The mandate for him is to not only groom the two news channels, but also a successor and a deputy.
Prabudhraj Singh, who was the bureau chief of the Hindi news service, has now been made the editorial head of Sahara Samay NCR, a news channel aimed at the city of Delhi and neighbouring townships and areas spreading into other States, including Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
Sahara Samay NCR, slated to formally go on air towards month-end, is presently running test signals.
Interestingly, senior print media journalist and former metro chief of Times of India’s Delhi edition, Sanjay Kaw will be assisting Singh. Earleir, Kaw, who has had a successful stint as a print journalist, was the editorial head of Sahara Samay NCR.
Contacted by Indiantelevision.com, senior executives of Sahara India Media & Entertainment (SIME) confirmed the changes, adding that another round of reshuffle would be undertaken towards June end with the addition of new personnel in various divisions of the TV new venture.
Ajay Pandey, who was earlier looking after the national news channel, will now be assisting SIME senior vice-prseident DK Pandey in bringing about a synergy in all the activities of the news channels from distribution to marketing to editorial inputs.
DK Pandey was roped in early this year from Reliance’s telecom division. He has also done a stint at Zee Telefilms.
Apart from few other changes, Prakash Nanda, a senior staffer with Sahara’s English weekly has been brought into the TV news division to handle diplomatic and strategic affairs coverage. Nanda, like Kaw,is also a former Times of India journalist.
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.
