News Broadcasting
TAM India to present 3 papers at WAM meet
MUMBAI: TAM India will be presenting three papers at the WAM conference in Canada this June. This comes close on the heels of TAM’s success at the ESOMAR conference in Tokyo.
WAM (World Audience Measurement Conference), organised jointly by ESOMAR and ARF, is the world’s largest and only platform of this kind. TAM India has been the only research organisation to be invited to present three papers at one go at WAM since it started four years ago.
TAM India officials are jubilant. Says CEO TAM Media Research, LV Krishnan, “This is the first time a country’s research outfit has managed this feat at a global level like WAM. This indicates the quality of research capabilities of Indian companies. The outcome of each of the research papers will translate into new level of value addition for the entire Indian media industry and understanding audience ROI.”
WAM is the only meeting place for executives involved in media measurement. It offers learning opportunities in new development, new techniques and provides constructive feedback to audience measurement firms from around the world.
This time there will also be a conference on measuring the effectiveness of branded entertainment and sponsorship. Participation for these annual events comes from countries across the globe and grosses more than 400 papers on media research.
This conference is of particular importance as it comes in the backdrop of TAM Media Research predicting that 2005 is the take-off year for the Indian media industry. With the past year having been an eventful one, it seems this year has huge potential for advertisers, broadcasters and planners to maximise deliveries through a planned approach to media research.
TAM Media Research is a joint venture company between AC Nielsen and Kantar Media research/ IMRB which is the TV ratings firm that measures and analyses TV viewership patterns in India. It runs one of the largest Peoplemeter TV Panels in the World with more than 20,000sample individuals representing all the towns with population of more than 100,000 polled every week for their viewing habits.
Says LV Krishnan, “It was in 2004 that media received media attention. And in 2005 already some 50 new channels have announced their plans to start this year. With the growing importance of reach, advertisers are increasingly juggling TV, newspapers, magazines, radio, cinema, outdoor and online to get the right mix. Broadcasters are embracing the transition from cable and satellite to DTH and broadband and advertisers are finding ways to move beyond ad breaks.”
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.
