News Broadcasting
Zee de-links DD cricket channels from Dish TV
NEW DELHI: Dish TV, Zee Group’s direct-to-home service, has discontinued two of Doordarshan’s channels on its platform.
This “arrangement” will be in force for the duration of the ongoing India-Australia cricket series to begin with involving four Test matches. And unless the Supreme Court rules otherwise, it is also likely to include the upcoming India-Pakistan One-Day International (part of the Indian cricket board’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations) and a two-Test India South Africa fixture in November.
Yesterday, Prasar Bharati had written a letter asking Dish TV to take off the DTH platform DD National and DD Sports.
Essel Group, the umbrella entity for Zee Telefilms and ASC Enterprise Ltd (the licence holder for the DTH service), however, made its protests known to Prasar Bharati.
In a letter to Prasar Bharati, Essel Group additional vice-chairman Jawahar Goel wrote : “As per the direction received from CEO Prasar Bharati’s office, we are making arrangement to stop carriage of DD National and DD Sports on Dish TV platform.” He, however, pointed out that Prasar Bharati’s demands were against the broadcast and cable TV regulator’s recommendations on the `must-provide’clause.
Trai, in its recent recommendations on “Issues Relating to Broadcasting and Distribution of TV channels,” had suggested that “every broadcaster shall provide on request signals of its TV channels on a non-discriminatory basis to all distributors of TV channels including cable network, DTH, and head-ends-in-the-sky.”
Though the regulator’s recommendations are yet to be accepted by the government, Dish TV has made it clear indirectly that Prasar Bharati might become the first defaulter of the must-provide clause.
Dish TV has started running a scroll to educate its consumers on how they could access DD National and DD Sports for watching the cricket telecast. Dish TV has claimed that a major portion of its subscriber base is located in far-flung areas of the country where cable or terrestrial TV is difficult to access.
“This issue has also been brought to the knowledge of Trai,” Goel wrote, while confirming his support to the national broadcaster.
Prasar Bharati CEO KS Sarma expressed satisfaction that the matter has been resolved with Dish TV. A response from Trai, however, could not be elicited.
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.
