News Broadcasting
Tata Sons, Star Group ink DTH deal; Tatas to hold 80% stake
MUMBAI / NEW DELHI: News Corp’s Star Group and Tata Sons today announced the inking of a deal for a 20:80 joint venture agreement for a KU-band direct-to-home (DTH) television service for India.
This follows several draft memoranda of understanding and meetings between Star Group and Tata executives over the past few months. It was last September that indiantelevision.com broke the news that Star had zeroed down on the Tatas to be their partners in the Indian DTH venture.
The Tatas, being the the majority shareholder, would reportedly be nominating a CEO, while a Star person is expected to be the COO. A name that has been thrown up as a likely candidate from Star’s end is G Jagdish Kumar, who is anyway the COO of Space TV, the company Star had set up for its DTH foray.
It is also expected that a formal revised application will be moved in this regard with the government, which has already given a conditional letter of invitation to Space TV.
As far as the investment in this project from the Tatas is concerned, it is reportedly coming by and large through Tata Sons.
A statement issued by Tata Sons states that “the Tata Group and Star Group look forward to building India’s largest digital television platform and offering a range of channels including exclusive channels, with interactive features and services.”
Expectations of some finalisation of the DTH have been doing the rounds ever since the Star Groups big three of CEO Michelle Guthrie, COO Steve Askew and CFO John Lau flew down to Mumbai last week.
Industry experts pointed out that if Star has to start a DTH service in India, it should not delay the foray as completion of formalities is likely to take some time. With the country and the government getting into the general election mode, such a process may take up more time than usual, if delayed further.
Subhash Chandra’s companies ASC Enterprise and Zee have launched a DTH service under the Dish TV brand in the last quarter of 2003. Though the subscriber base may not be as high as is being claimed (50,000), there is no denying that any further delay by Star may give Chandra’s companies enough lead time to consolidate operations.
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.
