News Broadcasting
Sahara One to spread global footprint; Filmy’s US launch on 28 August
MUMBAI: Sahara One Media and Entertainment Ltd. has charted out plans to spread overseas the footprint of its two entertainment channels.
The first target is the US where Sahara One, the general entertainment channel, is already available on EchoStar. Hindi movie channel Filmy will be launched on the DirecTV platform later this month. While EchStar offers a range of Indian channels including Sony, Max, Zee TV and Zee Cinema, the News Corp-controlled DirecTV has the Star, ETV and Aastha channels on its platform.
“Our focus this year will be on the international distribution of these two channels. We will be launching Filmy in the US on 28 August and progressively extending our channels to new territories,” says Sahara One Media and Entertainment CEO Shantonu Aditya.
Australia and New Zealand will be the next destination and plans are on to launch both the channels on 1 September. Following up on the launch of Sahara One in the Middle East, Filmy will be taken to the region in a month’s time. The two channels will also soon start beaming in Nepal and Maldives, adds Aditya.
By having a global presence, Sahara hopes to hook on audiences from the South Asian community and rake in subscription revenues. “Our target is to make Sahara One and Filmy also available in the UK and South Africa by the end of this year,” says Aditya.
Indian channels are increasingly eyeing the global market, particularly to boost their subscription revenues. Zee Telefilms Ltd, for instance, garners one-fourth of its total revenues from international operations.
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.
