News Broadcasting
Touchtel announces World Cup special voice portal
Touchtel, which claims to be Delhis first private fixed line service provider, has introduced a special Voice Portal value added service, to mark what it terms the worlds biggest event – the ICC World Cup 2003. In a bid to include all subscribers in the special cricketing jamboree, Touchtel is all set to bring the fever across miles through this innovation.
The current phone plus service ‘Dial for Cricket’ is being shifted to speech interactive voice portal during the world cup period. This novel speech-activated system lends access to the cricket information service. Subscribers need to dial 1750 and then just speak out the cricket information from a given menu they wish to access.
Through 1750, a Touchtel subscriber can access information on live commentary, details of scorecard, position of teams, points gained by teams and schedule of matches. The service will be charged Rs. 2.40/pulse (one pulse=180 seconds). The system runs on a unique speech recognition based software and allows people to conduct a truly natural dialogue with an automated system.
Bharti Telenet Limited, Delhi is a licensed Private Basic Service operator for the Delhi Circle. It launched its brand of fixed line telephone services and solutions under the brand name Touchtel last March.
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.
