News Broadcasting
Southern Spice stakes claim to throne in South
MUMBAI: Even as rumours of an affiliation with music major MTV do the rounds, relative greenhorn channel Southern Spice claims it is the reigning sound of music across television screens in the South.
Quoting TAM data for the week ended 10 April for the 15-34 ABC South India market, the channel says it has a channel share of 41 per cent in the South, much ahead of MTV’s 28 per cent share. Zee Music with a 14 per cent share and Channel [V] with a 11 per cent share are ahead only of B4U Music, which has a single digit share of six per cent, according to the TAM data.
SS Music also claims a cumulative reach of 14.65 per cent, a notch over arch rival MTV’s 12.5 per cent. Channel [V] comes a distant third with 6.81 per cent reach, during the prime time of 4 pm to 11.30 pm.
The channel that recently turned three and is in the process of establishing itself as a premium music brand, says it has a 51 per cent channel share in Tamil Nadu, 47 per cent in Kerala, 33 per cent in Andhra Pradesh and 42 per cent in Karnataka. Interestingly, Karnataka is the only state where its cumulative reach falls substantially below that of MTV, while it is on par with MTV in Kerala and higher than MTV in both Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.
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.
