News Broadcasting
Sahara’s Karishma to see light of day next week ?
NEW DELHI/KOLKATA: Karishma may yet shine on the small screen and Sahara TV may yet be able to woo the viewers in an effort to cash in on CAS. The telecast may start from 7 July.
The Calcutta High Court on Monday allowed the telecast of the controversial mega-serial Karishma : A miracle of Destiny on Sahara TV, promoted by Subrata Roy. Justice M H S Ansari vacated the injunction on the telecast of the serial produced by Sahara Media Entertainment Limited, with a direction to start the telecast from 7 July.
The court directed Sahara to furnish a bank guarantee of Rs 250,000 with the Registrar (original side) of the High Court, a PTI report from Kolkata said. However,Sahara Manoranjan could not be contacted for an official comment and whether the serial would start airing from 7 July or later.
Best selling American author Barbara Taylor Bradford had filed a petition alleging infringement of copyright claiming that the serial was based on her novel A Woman of Substance. During the course of the hearing the writer of Karishma had also alleged that a foreign TV network and its owner were behind the court case against Karishma.
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.
