News Broadcasting
Star’s Kumud Chowdhary joins SaharaOne as programming head
MUMBAI: Post the restructuring of Sahara’s media and entertainment business under a joint venture management company with Percept, the company saw a couple of high profile exits. One of them was Sahara Media and Entertainment vice president, programming Triptii Sharma in November last year. SaharaOne has found her replacement as programming head in Star India’s commissioning editor Kumud Chowdhary, who is slated to join office on 11 January.
Chowdhary, who was with Star for a period of two years, will be reporting to SaharaOne Television COO Karuna Samtani. Speaking to indiantelevision.com about the new development, Chowdhary says, “It was a great offer and there is nothing to lose here. One can do what one wants in terms of experimenting with different kinds of programming. My agenda here will be first find my focus and then work on it.”
Confirming Chowdhary’s appointment, Samtani, on the other hand says, “There are very few good professionals in this business and we were looking for someone who would gel in with our personality and our business goals. The Percept and Sahara Groups have found a great person in Kumud.”
The change from Sahara Manoranjan to SaharaOne last year has been more than just a name change as far as the channel is concerned. The look and feel of SaharaOne has slowly but surely seen a great deal of improvement in the last few months. And in this competitive market, where there are many players including Star’s new baby Star One, Samtani is looking at putting together a strong core team to take competition head on.
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.
