News Broadcasting
Times Now partners with Sky Media for ad sales in the UK
MUMBAI: In a move to strengthen its ad sales in the UK market, Times Now has signed a deal with Sky Media. The channel has been recently launched in the UK market and claims to have received good initial response to its programming.
Sky Media, will be the channel’s exclusive ad sales partner for all mainstream sales in the region. The agency will be mandated to handle the airtime as well as sponsorship sales for the channel in the UK.
The channel has also recently taken on board Tarun Sawhney as the country sales manager based in London to manage all the channel sales and marketing in UK and for all the channels in India for clients in the region. With the intent to grow its mainstream sales, the channel tested on Barb in February and has become barb rated since April.
Times Network International business head Naveen Chandra said, “Times Now has had consistent ratings leadership in India and in other markets due to its product differentiation with high quality, hard-hitting journalism for the last ten years. We are happy to introduce this strong News product to the South Asian TV audiences in the UK, and build it with smart local marketing initiatives. In Sky Media sales, we believe we have the perfect sales partner for leveraging our product strengths.”
“It’s a fantastic opportunity for us to add TIMES NOW to our extensive portfolio of South Asian targeted channels; it adds another dimension to our offering for advertisers with great news content for a continually growing and important audience”, said Sky Media operations director Richard Hawking.
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.
