News Broadcasting
Star looking to up distribution numbers on BSkyB with new deal
MUMBAI: Star Plus and Star News look set to get serious a leg-up in their UK distribution numbers.
Come 1 March 2004, Star Plus and Star News will be available to over seven million subscribers of Sky Digital’s Family Pack or Lifestyle Pack without having to pay an additional subscription fee.
Until now, the two channels have been available to Sky subscribers only on an additional fee payment of ?12 a month.
BSkyB and Star announced this today adding that other than widening access to Star Plus and Star News, this move will enable existing Star subscribers to save up to ?144 per year while being able to access 109 entertainment, music, documentary, lifestyle and news TV channels. This also includes three regional radio stations and 11 national radio and audio channels.
“This is great news for advertisers who now have a vehicle to target the largest South Asian TV audience in the UK,” said Star’s UK head of sales Nick Thind.
Star Plus was voted the UK’s Favourite International Channel in the 2002 Scorpio Multimedia Cable TV Awards, according to a company release.
In India, the channel has completed its third year as India’s Number one entertainment channel on cable. Following the re-branding of Star News in April 2003, the channel has doubled its viewership in India, the statement claims.
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.
