News Broadcasting
Vijay TV to air star lit event as New Year special
CHENNAI:Netru Indru Nalai , an event organized by The Banyan, a non government organisation working with mentally unstable destitute women in Chennai, is scheduled to be shown as a new year special on 1 January 2003 on Vijay TV.
The event which took place on 14 December 2002, was attended by some of the biggest stars of Kollywood such as Kamal Hassan, Simran, Sneha, Ramya Krishnan, Rambha, SP Balasubramaniam, Yesudas, Srinivas, Karthik, Suresh Peters, Sujatha, Chinmayi to name a few, is slated to be one of the most successful events of the year.
The event was anchored by Suhasini Manirathnam, Revathy and Vijay Adiraj and had performances by Rambha, Simran and Ramya Krishnan and Star’s girl band Viva, states a release. S P Balasubramaniam and Yesudas contributed to the cause by taking the audience on a nostalgic trip through the music of yesteryears and Kamal Hassan gave a preview of his forthcoming movie Anbe Sivam by rendering its title song, says an official release.
The essence of the show was the Banyan Anthem penned by the Vairamuthu, one of the most versatile and leading lyricists of Tamil cinema, and set to tune by Srinivas and sung by a kingdom of singers holding lit diyas to signify the solemnity of the event.
According to the release, the fund-raiser event will help Banyan to provide shelter, care and medical and psychiatric services for its inmates.
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.
