News Broadcasting
Seven companies pitch for Trai’s consultancy account
NEW DELHI: About seven companies have shown interest in doing work for broadcast and cable regulator, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), relating to global and technical scenarios in cable TV.
The companies who have pitched in for the Trai account include the Hong Kong-based Media Partners Asia, which has already done some work for the regulator, Ernst & Young, Boston Consulting, PwC and Deolite & Haskins.
Trai went through some presentations today and is likely to make the final choices for two consultants by early next week.
The two consultants would be required to furnish their reports on the following points:
Consultant 1 (International Trends):
o Study of international trends on the digitalisation of cable television.
o The report should cover four developed countries, including the USA and the UK as well as some developing countries with per capita income similar to that of India.
o The report should cover the statutes and regulations adopted by these countries towards the objective of digitalisation of cable TV as well as implementation schedules.
o The report should also cover the technical standards adopted by these countries.
o The technical status of plug and play digital television, which can be directly plugged with digital cable services without the need for a STB (set-top box).
Consultant 2 (Technical & Costing)
o Details of technical set-up (including costing) from head-end to customer-end required by multi-system operators and local cable operators for the delivery of 30 FTA channels, 36 scrambled pay channels requiring analogue or digital STB, incremental details for further 144 digital channels in steps of 36.
o The details should be provided for different levels of subscriber base of up to 500 subscribers, up to 5000 subscribers, up to 50,000 subscribers and up to 200,000 subscribers.
o The details of technical setup (including costing) required at the cable head-end to receive signals from broadcasters through satellite, optical fiber etc.
o The details of technical setup (including costing) required to provide interactive TV services such as pay-per-view, video on demand, etc.
o The consultant would be required to study the status of digitalisation of TV in India and visit at least two towns where the MSOs have started digitalisation of their services. This should be a part of the report.
o The consultant will take into account the relevant ITU, IEC and BIS standards and suggest need for change, if any.
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.
