News Broadcasting
Times Now eyes ‘super’ viewership this budget
MUMBAI: Times Now, it seems, has made ‘super’ its trademark for shows. After a successful ‘Super Primetime’ that was created during the elections and is on-air even now, the English news channel is creating a special band of shows targeting the budget.
‘Super Budget 2014’ will be a congregation of debate shows, interviews, analysis and discussions with Times Now editor in chief Arnab Goswami and economists like Omkar Goswami, Lord Meghnad Desai, Dr Rajeev Kumar and Sunil Alagh who will discuss issues regarding the common man’s expectations from the budget 2014.
Some of the ‘Super Budget 2014’ shows include Budget Roundtable that is a series of two shows of one hour each with Goswami, Times Now political and economy editor Navika Kumar and will air on 28 June and 5 July. Budget Expectation: World’s Eye on India will show the world’s expectation from the budget with international panelists such as Jagdish Bhagwati and Andrew Ferris. The show will go on air on the same two days for half an hour each. My Budget Wish-list is a series of vignettes that give the common man a chance to voice his opinion of what he wants from this year’s budget.
Speaking on the new programming lineup Times Now, ET Now and zoom chief marketing officer Jatin Bhatt said, “After the highly successful general elections campaign where we garnered the highest numbers by far, we are looking at strengthening our lead by the line up towards the budget. Times Now will have a 360 degree consumer centric marketing program with innovations will help us get more viewers, achieve higher growth and viewership numbers.”
Digital medium is being used to find out audiences’ wish-list for the same. Both the union budget and the railway budget will be covered live on the channel.
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: 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.
