News Broadcasting
Zee adds Realty TV to bouquet
MUMBAI / NEW DELHI: Subhash Chandra’s Zee Telefilms is certainly not letting any grass grow under its feet following the defection of movie channel HBO from the Zee-Turner platform to Sony Entertainment’s One Alliance.
In a deal signed two days ago but announced today, Zee-Turner has entered into a distribution agreement with the Zone Broadcasting (Maximum Realty) Ltd for distribution in India of Realty TV, a channel devoted solely to reality television programming. The channel will be launching in India in January, industry sources say.
It is further learned that Zee-Turner will be hiking its full package rate from the current Rs 42 to around Rs 60. The full package includes all the Zee channels, the Alphas, the Turner channels (Cartoon Network and CNN), Zee’s educational channel ZED and Realty TV. However, judging by the packaging structure that Zee adopted earlier in the year wherein it offered various combinations of channels at different prices, most operators will be paying lower rates.
Meanwhile, today’s Financial Express has quoted Star India CEO Peter Mukerjea as saying the lead network had decided to maintain status quo on its rates and would concentrate instead on driving up connectivity.
While Star’s distribution head Tony D’Silva maintains that a final decision on this would only be made next week, if as reported Star has decided to refrain from going in for a hike, it is bound to increase the pressure from cable operators if Zee hikes its full package rate to Rs 60.
Meanwhile, industry sources say that Turner will inform Zee by next week whether premium movie channel Cinemax can be brought into the bouquet to replace HBO. HBO being a stakeholder in Cinemax does complicate matters. Further, with HBO and Star Movies having tied up most of the rights for new Hollywood blockbusters, there may also be an issue of getting decent titles on the channel to contend with.
Realty TV is a UK-based channel launched about a month ago, industry sources say. Realty TV is also available in South Africa.
Alongside the Realty TV announcement, Zee also informed the Bombay Stock Exchange that its board had today approved and ratified the distribution agreement entered into between Zee-Turner Television Eighteen India Ltd for distribution of CNBC channel in India.
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.
