News Broadcasting
Viacom’s Spike TV gets into the ‘Wrestlemania’ spirit
MUMBAI: One of the biggest television events of the year, the World Wrestling Entertainment’s (WWE) Wrestlemania XX tales place this year on 14 March. In India, the event will air on Ten Sports sometime in early April. In the US, Spike TV has firmed up plans to create buzz around the event.
It was 20 years ago that WWE chairman Vince Mcmahon conceived the pay per view event. At first the event struggled to find a television audience but gradually it became a home to classic matches featuring the likes of Andre The Giant, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Hulk Hogan. The centerpieces of Spike TV’s tribute are the premieres of two original specials Wrestlemania’s Ten Greatest Matches Ever and 10 Things Every Guy Should Experience: WrestleMania XX.”
Hosted by wrestler Ric Flair, the greatest matches ever will unveil the ten greatest matches in the tournament’s history as voted on by the WWE superstars. The other special 10 Things Every Guy Should Experience features Raw fans squaring off against fans of the other show Smackdown in New York City. Up for grabs are a series of WWE-related prize packages and for ringside seats to the sold-out Wrestlemania XX event in Madison Square Garden.
10 Things will chronicle the finalists’ entire journey from wannabe contestant to being a VIP at the event. From scavenger hunts to trivia games to physical challenges, the two duos battle it out in a variety of ways during the week leading up to the event to see who is indeed most worthy of the hottest tickets in town.
The first network dedicated to men, Spike TV claims to be available in 87 million homes in the US. It is a division of MTV Networks.
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.
