News Broadcasting
Sushil Kumar Shinde unplugged on Sahara Samay’s ‘The RKB show’
“I have to pay a hafta of Rs 6,000 crore (60 billion) per week to Maharashtra’s creditors,” says Sushil Kumar Shinde on The RKB Show. Airing on 24 April at 7:30 PM , the show has Maharashtra's reigning chief minister Sushil Kumar Shinde in an exclusive hour-long interview.
In this explosive tete-e-tete, Shinde speaks about how he still holds the centre responsible for denying drought relief to the state government. "I met the prime minister along with Balasaheb Thackeray. I asked for Rs 1.99 crore (19.9 million), but Thackeray asked for Rs 2000 crore (20 billion). They have sent Rs 43 crore (430 million). They are not even bothered about their own alliance partners, the NDA have politicized even the issue of famine relief."
"People like Pramod Mahajan and the BJP are so scared of Sonia Gandhi that they see her everywhere. In fact they have already admitted defeat against us." Shinde says.
The chief minister claims that he has given a plus budget for the current financial year. "I agree this is only for the year but give me another couple of years and I shall wipe out the huge deficit we inherited from the Shiv Sena-BJP. I have already stabilsied it, in fact now it has started to come down. I am now having to pay a hafta of Rs 6,000 (60 billion) crore per week and I will pay it”
An obviously passionate and angry chief minister, replying to a question on Dr P S Pasricha’s transfer, says, "I was in intelligence when I was a sub-inspector. I know who is feeding what to whom. If he (Pasricha) wanted to continue only as Commissioner, he should have stated in writing that he did not want to be promoted."
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.
