News Broadcasting
Times Now narrows gap with Republic TV, again
BENGALURU: Over the last few weeks, a see-saw ratings battle is on between the two of the leading Indian English news channels – the Arnab Goswami-led Republic TV that has held a pole position for over a quarter of a year since its launch, and its nearest competitor and the ratings king it dethroned – Times Now.
For week 32 of 2017 (Saturday, 5 August 2017 to Friday, 11 August 2017), according to Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) weekly list, of the top five news channels in the English News genre – All India (U+R): NCCS AB: Males 22+ Individuals, the weekly difference in impressions between the two channels has dropped to 7,000 with Republic TV in the lead.
Earlier, in week 30 of 2017,the difference in the ratings of the two channels had dropped to just 2,000 impressions. Republic TV was ahead with 1.074 million weekly impressions to Times Now 1.072 million impressions in week 30 of 2017. The gap then increased in week 31 of 2017 to 29,000 with Republic TV garnering 1.058 million weekly impressions to Times Now’s 1.029 million impressions.
BARC data indicates that Republic TV was ahead of Times Now in week 32 of 2017 with 1.124million weekly impressions to Times Now weekly impressions of 1.117 million. India Today Television maintained the third place that it has been holding over the past few weeks of 2017 with 0.407 million weekly impressions followed by CNN News 18 with 0.268 million weekly impressions at fourth place and NDTV 24×7 with 0.243 million weekly impressions at fifth place.
In the meantime, both the top channels continued their on air chest thumping battle, slicing and dicing BARC data to the numbers that make them appear the best in the genre. While Times Now quoted relative share as a yard stick to show that it was far ahead of Republic TV, the latter bandied figures for prime time to claim that it was far ahead of Times Now.
Also Read:
Times Now closes in on Republic TV
Republic TV & Pushkar’s kin restrained, hearing on 21 Sept
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.
