News Broadcasting
TV9 promotes political editor to managing editor’s job
NEW DELHI: Associated Broadcasting Co, which operates the TV9 network, has elevated Kartikeya Sharma to managing editor, handing the political journalist control of its newsroom after he spent the past two years climbing the ranks at rival News9 Broadcast TV.
Sharma, who joined News9 as deputy managing editor in July 2023, has boomeranged back to TV9, where he previously served as executive editor from March 2021 to July 2023. During that earlier stint, he anchored “Siyasat kee baat” and oversaw News9plus, billed as India’s first news-based streaming platform, whilst managing its podcast operation.
The 26-year veteran of Indian journalism cut his teeth as a sub-editor at The Asian Age in 1998 before moving through NDTV, The Week magazine, and two separate tours at India Today—where he rose from special correspondent to political editor over nearly a decade. He also logged time as chief political correspondent at News 24 and executive editor at NewsX, where he ran bureaus and occasionally helmed the channel.
His longest stretch came at Wion, Zee Network’s international news outfit, where he juggled dual roles as political editor and output editor from 2016 to 2021. The job sent him chasing stories across Myanmar, Syria, Congo, Vladivostok, Israel, Turkey and Indonesia—a globetrotting cv that included covering Japan’s tsunami and the bombing of India’s Kabul embassy.
Now back at TV9, Sharma faces the unenviable task of keeping viewers glued to linear television whilst everyone else pivots to streaming. Good luck with that.
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.
