News Broadcasting
Ted Harbert to take charge of E! Networks 12 July
MUMBAI: Comcast Corporation has announced that Ted Harbert will become E! Networks president and CEO from 12 July.
He will succeed Mindy Herman who had announced her decision to leave her post earlier this year.
Comcast Cable president Steve Burke added, “Ted is an excellent choice to head E! Networks as it begins the next chapter of its growth. Ted has been in the television business for his entire professional life, and he is uniquely suited to reach out to the Hollywood community and make E! even more of a must-have network for people who love entertainment.
An entertainment-industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience Harbert most recently served as a producer at 20th Century Fox Television. There he developed more than a dozen comedies and dramas for networks over the last year.
He previously was NBC Studios president. He was responsible for the development and production of all NBC-owned programming for all dayparts, and was a television producer for DreamWorks SKG. He has also held key executive positions at ABC, including serving as ABC Entertainment chairman.
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.
