News Broadcasting
Zee Media confirms 28 employees test positive for Covid2019
MUMBAI: At least 28 employees of Zee Media have been tested positive for Covid2019, most of them asymptomatic, an official statement from the channel confirms. The network earlier reported one positive case, who had come in direct or indirect contact with all of these employees.
“Due to early diagnosis and pro-active intervention the network was able to detect employees who were positive and were able to break the cycle and contain the infection, in coordination with government and health authorities,” the statement reads.
The channel has shifted its team to an alternative facility for time being and the entire office, newsroom and studios have been sealed for sanitisation.
“The testing of the employees will continue and the ICMR too has relaxed its testing norms to allow us to test asymptomatic individuals,” said the statement.
Zee Media, which has 2500 employees, has assured that “our fearless coverage will continue. And, such challenges will not be able to break our resolve to discharge our duties,” it concludes.
Earlier, over 50 journalists were detected positive for the virus in Mumbai, the majority of them from the broadcast media. Similarly, 27 employees of a Tamil news channel were tested positive last month.
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.
