News Broadcasting
Sahara Samay-Mumbai may launch officially in a fortnight
MUMBAI: Sahara Samay-Mumbai, Sahara Group’s western India-specific news channel, may formally launch in two weeks time, informs channel head Rajiv K Bajaj.
The channel began its test run on 26 September and has been tweaking itself ever since.
“Precisely,” Bajaj says, “we have to settle some distribution problems and technical glitches. Once that is done, we will go on air officially.”
Meanwhile, as a part of its programming initiative, Sahara Samay-Mumbai last week launched the RKB Show – Bajaj’s trademark programme – which takes the viewers live to various parts of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa and tackles on-going social issues.
The three-hour-long RKB Show, which according to a company release is considered the channel driver – is telecast at 7.30 pm everyday.
Besides live coverage, the programme, anchored by Bajaj, brings together celebrities and the common man in Western India and hosts interviews at its studios.
Bajaj says, “We usually take up a raging issue, invite about five to six guest to our studio, hold discussions and try to arrive to a practical conclusion. The latest issue we dealt with was the stamp scam case – we even spoke to deputy chief minister Chhagan Bhujbal on the issue.”
RKB Show has already featured people like Shekhar Suman, Mallika Sarabhai, Suresh Dada Jain, Kripa Shankar Singh, Ranjit Deshmukh, Dewang Patel, Dr Ronu Mazumdar, Amitabh Dayal, Divya Datta and Pinky Advani among other celebrities.
Bajaj says, he began is ‘RKB journey’ with his column, RKB’s the Good, the Bad, the Ugly in the Daily newspaper. “Then when I joined the channel In Mumbai, I started with the RKB Show and brought it with me to Sahara also.”
Other shows in the channel include back-to-back news bulletins beginning with the main Mumbai News Bulletin and special reportage from other centres including Pune, Nagpur and Ahmedabad.
As for the shows Bajaj says, “We are only following the direction of our chairman to provide solutions instead of just focusing on problems.”
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.
