News Broadcasting
Zee Cafe gets into action mode with ‘Without A Trace’
MUMBAI: In a bid to add spice to its lineup English general entertainment channel Zee Cafe will kick off the action show Without A Trace from 15 October at 9 pm.
This is a procedural drama about the New York Missing Persons Squad of the FBI. The sole responsibility of the special task force is to find missing persons, by applying advanced psychological profiling techniques to peel back the layers of the victims’ lives and trace their whereabouts in an effort to discover whether they have been abducted, been murdered, committed suicide or simply run away.
The show has been produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. The team reconstructs a ‘day of disappearance’ timeline that details every minute of the 24 hours prior to the disappearance and digs into every facet of the victim’s life, following one simple rule: learn who the victim is in order to learn where the victim is.
Senior agent Jack Malone (Anthony LaPaglia), a tough but compassionate, seasoned and astute professional, heads the dedicated team that knows too well that every second counts when someone vanishes. His squad includes Samantha Spade (Poppy Montgomery), an agent whose blonde good looks belie a tough, complex approach to her work; Vivian Johnson (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), a no-nonsense investigator with a special insight into victims’ families; Danny Taylor (Enrique Murciano), whose sensitivity is often covered up by his street smarts, and the strait-laced Martin Fitzgerald (Eric Close), who joined the team as a result of his father’s connections but
has since earned his stripes.
The team’s newest member is street-smart F.B.I. rookie Elena Delgado (Rosalyn Sanchez), formerly of the N.Y.P.D. vice unit. As the agents work on varied and complicated cases, details about their own lives continue to unfold.
In addition as a Diwali special the channel will air an Abba concert on 21 October at 4 pm. One of its local shows After Hours celebrates one year with a one hour special on 15 October at 7:30 pm. It will be repeated the following Monday at 3 pm, Wednesday at 10:30 am, Saturday at 10:30 pm and on Sunday at noon.
The channel will also air the classic mini series The Thornbirds from 10 October from Tuesday-Saturday at 2 pm. This mini series covers 60 years in the lives of the Cleary family, brought from New Zealand to Australia to run their aunt Mary Carson’s ranch. The story centers on their daughter, Meggie, and her love for the family’s priest, Father Ralph de Bricassart. Meggie tries to forget Ralph by marrying dashing stockman Luke O’Neill, but she and Ralph are soon reunited, with tragic consequences for them both.
This romantic drama has won four Golden Globes (four nominations) and six Emmies (10 nominations).
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: 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.
