News Broadcasting
Star India locks in ‘KBC’ rights for next five years
MUMBAI: Star India’s iconic gameshow Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) is coming back – and for another five seasons, mind it.
The return of KBC was revealed this evening by Star Entertainment India CEO Sameer Nair at an Ad Club function in Mumbai. Nair disclosed that Star had locked in the rights to KBC for a period of five years (2007 to 2011). Nair also stated that Star was in talks to sign on an advertiser who would commit to all five seasons of the show.
Star Plus first launched KBC in 2000 with superstar Amitabh Bachchan in the anchor’s seat. The tremendous success of the show inspired the channel to bring it back in August 2005, with the second season KBC Dviteeya. The game show has been delivering good numbers for the channel before it got pulled out after 61 episodes due to Bachchan’s illness. Big B, who originally committed to shoot 85 episodes, was unable to continue shooting after his hospitalisation.
Celador, the UK-based format producer, owns the original version of KBC, ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’.
The Big Q of course is whether Star will be able to “lock kiya jaye” the Big B. That looks highly unlikely at this juncture so the next Big Q is who could be the possible choice to step into Bachchan’s considerably large (not just in terms of foot size) shoes?
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.
