News Broadcasting
Sahara TV readies new look for 2003
NEW DELHI: The Sahara India Parivaar is set to unleash a countrywide media blitzkrieg on the group’s launch of new media products, including TV news channels, weeklies and more editions of the Urdu and Hindi dailies, apart from looking at foraying into foreign markets like the US, Canada and the UK.
Simultaneously, armed with a new programming strategy, the Subroto Roy-promoted company will also unveil a new look for its existing Hindi language general entertainment satellite channel Sahara TV.
“A media campaign involving the new offerings from the group will be launched by the middle of next month, a time by when we should be also ready with a new contemporary look for Sahara TV,” Sumit Roy, deputy director in Sahara India and the head of the group’s media & entertainment business, revealed to indiantelevision.com in a rare media interview.
According to him, the company is also finalising a new programming strategy which will zero down on a programme or few programmes which will act as “driver programmes to pull in more viewers” which in turn will create a demand for the entertainment channel so that cable operators are forced to include the channel in the prime band all over the country.
“We understand that there are some distribution problems with Sahara TV and we have also realised that we need an engine programme like Kaun Banega Crorepati to pull in more viewers,” Roy said, adding that the engine programme need not necessarily be a game show on the lines of KBC.
Since its inception, Sahara TV has never been the cable operators’ darling and barring few cities does not feature on the prime band, courtesy cable operators who prefer to put the likes of Star Plus, Sony, Zee TV, HBO and even MTV ahead of Sahara TV in the line up. This has resulted in Sahara TV, (despite some good programming in recent times like the serial Viraasat), failing to penetrate adequately in cable and satellite homes whose universe now has expanded to almost 40 million homes.
Roy said that the company has lined up some good shows, including filmstar Karisma Kapoor’s TV debut show and offerings from other film stars like Sridevi, and hopes that one of them or a combination of such programming will bring in the viewers in hordes to Sahara TV.
It seems that Sahara has zeroed in on Bollywood in a big way. Apart from the Bollywood stars featuring in their programmes, the group has also roped in former Miss World and current Bollywood heartthrob Aishwariya Rai as its ambassador, besides having Amitabh Bachchan and Raveena Tandon as part of the Sahara India Parivaar.
“You just wait and see, early next year we’ll come back with a bang,” Roy gushed, though refraining from detailing the exact programming line-up now. He also refused to comment on the size of the media campaign which will be unveiled in January saying, “It should suffice to say that the campaign will be a big one where we will target the TV channels, print medium and also the outdoors.”
In the initial phase Novocom and Crest Communications worked on the look that Sahara TV will sport from next year. Later, according to Roy, in-house inputs were also given.
“From the middle of January even the small component of news and current affairs programming will be phased out of Sahara TV in preparation of the launch of the news channels (slated for February),” Roy added.
The group is also working the finer details of the brand name to be used for the proposed new weeklies in Hindi and English, the launch of which may coincide with those of the news channels.
Come next year Sahara may just become the talk of the broadcasting and media industry for high profile programmes and media products, a la the parties which the company’s managing director Subroto Roy, with bosom buddy and politician Amar Singh, is known to host from time to time.
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.
