News Broadcasting
Two IAS officers to head DD, AIR
NEW DELHI: Prasar Bharati today announced that Indian Administrative Service officers Naveen Kumar and Brajeshwar Singh have been appointed the
director-generals of Doordarshan and All India Radio, respectively.
Announcing the appointments, Prasar Bharati CEO KS Sarma said that with this both the organizations would have full-time DGs and he can be free to pursue the broader vision of India’s pubcaster Prasar Bharati.
According to Sarma, the organization is negotiating with distributors and platforms in the US and the UK for beaming of DD international channel as also Indian language channels in Punjabi, Telugu, Gujarati amongst others.
Prasar Bharati would hold parleys with the Rupert Murdoch-controlled BSkyB in the UK for the carriage of DD channels and the talks are expected to be held next week in London when Sarma and other ministry officials go there.
For the carriage of DD channels abroad, global tenders had been floated four times. In the US, Globescat has the rights for distributing DD India (the international channel) on DTH and cable systems. As part of this deal, Prasar Bharati is earning $ 80,000 per year, Sarma said.
As part of another expansion process, Prasar Bharati has decided to start two classical music radio channels in Lucknow and Bangalore from 26 January. Alongside, a 24-hour news channel on radio would also be launched on Republic Day. Additionally, more language programming would be introduced for Delhi listeners, said Sarma.
Commenting on external services division of All India Radio, Sarma said it has been decided by the board in a recent meeting that some external services should be shut as the ministry of external affairs is supposed to bear the expenses which is “not happening” at the moment.
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.
