News Broadcasting
Sahara Samay Rajasthan to launch on 28 Feb
MUMBAI: In a bid to expand into the regional news space, Sahara India Entertainment & Media (SIME) has chalked out plans to launch a pan-Rajasthan channel from 28 February.
The aim is to bring and expose local content, with cultural and society bulletins. Sahara Samay Rajasthan will be the sixth region specific channel from the Sahara stable.
“The 24-hour free-to-air news channel put alongside Sahara Samay’s Mumbai, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh,Uttranchal and Chattisgarh targeted channels, is a channel tailor-made for the state,” Sahara India Media and Entertainment senior vice president Ambikanand Sahay explained.
The channel will feature similar programme that has made the network’s other regional news channels a force to reckon with. The Rajasthan news channel will broadcast in Hindi language and will be headed by Debasish Chatterjee. A total of six regional bureaus will cover the whole state. According to Sahay,”Commitment to encourage and develop city news is a major part of the regional agenda. The channel will incorporate 25 per cent of rapid-fire news on Indian and international scene.”
Apart from that other news covered will include the fields of arts, culture and society. The Sahara group, which is all set to unleash the Delhi region-centric channel, will start beaming D1 too from 28 February.
Some other regional players include the six Alpha channels from the Zee stable and ETV Network, which has 11 regional channels in languages like Telugu, Kannada, Bangla, Marathi, Rajasthan and Urdu.
These regional players are all trageting small and regional brands and advertisers.
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.
