News Broadcasting
Strong Indian presence at Mipcom
CANNES: Things are looking up at Mipcom for Indian broadcasters, production and animation companies this year. At least if one goes by the strong presence of from Indian participants with companies such as Sony Entertainment, Star, WEG India, Land Marvel Animation choosing to take up stands.
While the Star stand is a standout in terms of size and design, the Sony stand is more compact. Sony is looking for buyers for its library of programmes right from Aayushman to its movies like Devdas while, Star has also put up its entire programme portfolio on offer.
Star’s men (or rather women and men) in the Palais are creative head Shailaja Kejriwal (who we hear is looking for the next blockbuster for Star) and Rajesh Kamath who is negotiating pricing with wannabe buyers for the Star movie and programme library.
Sony is represented in the Palais by Sunil Lulla and Tarun Katial (both are buying aggressively we are told), while UK-based international sales head Neeraj Arora is leading the sales initiative. WEG India, a veteran at the markets, is hawking its movie library while Land Marvel a provider of special effects to the south Indian film industry is looking at getting animation projects. Land Marvel is represented by chairman and CEO M Veerashekar, V Vetrivell, and Samir Bose.
Zee TV has come out in strength with Gagan Goel, Ajay Trigunayat and Sunil Khanna beating the Palais’ floors. NDTV is also putting in a lot of muscle behind MipCom and is represented by Niraj Dutt, Avinash Kaul, and journalist I M Bajpai.
This apart, one came across Biren Ghose, Moi from UTV (Ronnie Screwavala is landing here on Friday), Delhi-based igrafix’s CEO Gagan Gandhi, Toonz Animation India CEO P Jayakumar, GreenGold Animation’s Rajiv Chilakalapudi, Escootoonz’s Prafull Gade, Discovery India’s programming head Pankaj Saxsena. (Is Discovery India finally going to get a healthy budget for programming?)
Clearly, the mood at the market is buoyant. As Star India’s Kamath says, “We believe there is a lot of potential and we are exploring it at this market.” Adds Lulla, “It’s a good market and we have been very busy.”
News Broadcasting
Network18 channels lead YouTube news viewership in March 2026
CNN-News18, News18 India and CNBC channels top categories with record views
MUMBAI: When the world hit refresh on breaking news, Network18’s channels were already streaming ahead. As geopolitical tensions and war-driven headlines fuelled a surge in global news consumption, the network’s digital playbook delivered big clocking record Youtube viewership across English, Hindi and business news categories in March 2026.
At the forefront was CNN-News18, which emerged as the clear leader in the English news segment with 130 million live and video-on-demand views. The channel edged past competitors such as Times of India (126.5 million), Times Now (101.1 million), India Today (88.2 million) and NDTV (77.5 million), according to Databeings data for March.
In the Hindi news arena, News18 India delivered a commanding performance, racking up a staggering 3,297 million views on YouTube. The channel comfortably outpaced NDTV India, which recorded 3,119 million views, underlining its deep reach and consistent engagement with mass audiences, as per Playboard data.
The network’s dominance wasn’t confined to general news. In the Hindi business segment, CNBC Awaaz topped the charts with 92 million views, narrowly ahead of Zee Business (90 million) and well ahead of ET Now Swadesh (57 million). Meanwhile, its English counterpart CNBC-TV18 posted a strong 58 million views, reinforcing the network’s cross-category strength.
The spike in viewership reflects a broader shift in audience behaviour, with viewers increasingly turning to digital platforms particularly Youtube for real-time updates and in-depth coverage during high-intensity news cycles. For Network18, the numbers signal more than just scale; they underline the effectiveness of a multi-platform strategy that blends speed, credibility and continuous coverage.
In a month where the news never paused, it seems viewers chose to stay tuned where the stream never stopped.
