News Broadcasting
TVTN IPO ends, oversubscribed 36.26 times
NEW DELHI: TV Today Network Limited (TVTN), India’s leading news broadcaster controlling Aaj tak and Headlines Today channels, concluded its IPO on 27 December with the offering being subscribed 36.26 times at a price of Rs. 95 per share.
TVTN had announced a price band of Rs. 80 to Rs. 95 (face value of Rs. five each) for its maiden offering of 14,500,000 shares through the book-building route. In total, the issue mopped up Rs 49000 million as a result of the over-susbcription. Part of this has to be returned to the people who would finally not be allotted shares.
The issue constituted 25 per cent of the fully diluted post issue paid-up capital of the Company. The issue opened on 18 December 2003. The shares will list on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange of India next month when the debuting bell will be rung.
According to a company statement, a key highlight of the IPO is that the company has successfully garnered the response from only the domestic investors, which consisted of qualified institutional investors, high net worth individuals and the retail public.
Keeping in mind the strong response that the IPO received from retail investors, TVTN has decided to allocate 30 per cent of the offering to the retail investors category, 25 per cent for the non-institutional investors category and the balance 45 per cent to the qualified institutional investors category.
The issue has been managed by JM Morgan Stanley Pvt. Ltd. as the Book Running Lead Manager, while Kotak Mahindra Capital Company Limited and ICICI Securities Limited were the Co-Book Running Lead Managers.
TV Today Network was the first broadcaster to uplink a 24-hour Hindi news channel from India. It launched Aaj Tak in December 2000. This was followed by the launch of Headlines Today, a 24-hour English news channel in March 2003. With viewership of approximately 22.7 million viewers, as per TAM viewership data for week ended 15 November 2003, it has effectively created a platform of a large audience for the advertisers to reach their target grouop.
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.
