News Broadcasting
Sun Network to launch channel for the young in Feb
MUMBAI: The children’s channel space in the country gets a shade denser.
The Kalanithi Maran-promoted Sun Network has announced its plans to launch a Telugu general entertainment channel targeting the young with an emphasis on cartoons and movies, in the next three weeks.
Gemini Cable Vision, to be popularly known as GCV, will be initially free to air, but is slated to go pay in the long term, according to Sun Network director Sharad Kumar. One month’s free transmission has been offered to cable operators in Andhra Pradesh to familiarise viewers with the channel. Youth and children are the target audience for this channel. While a few significant animation properties have been acquired by Sun for GCV, Kumar is reluctant to reveal names.
News will also form a minor part of the programming, but cable operators in Andhra Pradesh will have the alternative of opting to telecast songs that will be played during the duration of the news capsules.
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.
