News Broadcasting
Zee News Ltd to shutter Telugu news channel
MUMBAI: Zee News Ltd (ZNL) is retreating the Telugu news market. Zee 24 Gantalu has decided to close down next month as it struggled to become economically viable in a crowded marketplace where there are too many politically-oriented channels.
“24 Gantalu will close down on 20 September. There are 14 Telugu news channels operating in that market and two more are launching. They are politically driven and it does not make sense to continue in that market,” a source familiar with the development said.
The TV Telugu news ad market is pegged at Rs 1.2 billion. The market leader TV9 takes away a major chunk of this amount, according to an industry source. Price wars are rampant, making channels sell to advertisers at miserable rates.
“The entire Telugu TV news business is becoming unviable because of too many players and abnormally low ad rates. Other interests rather than business seems to be the primary motive,” says a senior news channel executive.
ZNL’s decision also comes ahead of its plans to launch an English-language general news channel that will consume heavy capital. The closure of 24 Ghantalu will help cut down ZNL’s losses from new businesses and ease pressure on the company’s operating profit if it goes ahead with the launch of the English channel.
Indiantelevision.com had reported that ZNL is planning to launch an English news channel towards the exit quarter of the fiscal as digitisation settles in the four metros.
The operating loss of 24 Ghantalu in FY’12 stood at approximately Rs 140 million, the source said.
ZNL had reported losses of Rs 227.4 million on a revenue of Rs 131.9 million for the fiscal from its new businesses that include Zee News Uttar Pradesh/Uttarakhand and 24 Gantalu.
“If the English channel launch is on, the shutting down of a loss-making channel will be seen as a positive move. It will soften ZNL’s pressure on Ebitda from the launch of an English news channel that will consume anywhere between Rs 2.5-3 billion over the first three years,” a media analyst said on condition of anonymity.
ZNL had reported Ebitda of Rs 533.5 million in FY’12 on a consolidated operating revenue of Rs 3.07 billion. The company runs a cluster of channels including Zee News, Zee Business, Zee 24 Taas, Zee Punjabi and 24 Ghanta.
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.
