News Broadcasting
Triveni Group to launch two news channels by year-end
MUMBAI: Triveni Media Limited, part of the Rs 30 billion Triveni Group, is all set to launch two news channels in October-November. The company is also planning to come up simultaneously with a lifestyle channel.
Triveni will make its appearance in the broadcasting space with a national Hindi news channel. It will also have a channel aimed at the UP-Uttranchal region.
“We are coming up with a bouquet of four channels in October-November. This includes three launches and a religious channel which we acquired. We have obtained all the government clearances,” says Triveni Infrastructure Development Company managing director Madhur Mittal.
The company is going to re-launch Sadhna, a religious channel.
With an investment of Rs 2 billion, the company plans to set up 18 channels in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Maharasthra, Punjab and West Bengal within two years.
“The debt component of the investment of Rs 2 billion will be 30 per cent. We are not looking at diluting equity now,” says Mittal.
The channels will be uplinked from Noida, near Delhi. “The inflow of data from the different news bureaus will be collected at a single centre and disseminated into the various regional languages. By using this approach, we will keep our costs low,” says Mittal.
Triveni Media has roped in Aaj Tak technical director Rahul Kulshetra to head the operations. Ram Kripal, also from Aaj Tak, is appointed as the group editor.
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.
