News Broadcasting
Zee News ropes in Munish Makhija for election spoof
MUMBAI: Zee News has roped in VJ turned actor Munish Makhija to play the lead role in its election special comedy spoof Vote for Chaudhary.
Chaudhary, a character being played by Makhija will play pranks on election-related activities.
Conceived, ideated and directed by Zee News senior producer Pankaj Shukla, Vote for Chaudhary is a show that will showcase harsh realties of today’s politics in a hilarious way.
Says Zee News editor Alka Saxena, “We have been looking for an ideal actor for the show as the idea was hatched long before the elections were announced in the three states. In fact we have been working on the idea since the Maharastra election and in Munish Makhija we got all the nuances that were required for the character.”
The concept: Chaudhary, the famous booth capturer of Mayhem in Haryana is hell bent to teach a lesson to all those politicians who have been using his services so far but denied his share of power in politics. Chaudhary is fighting for state assembly of Haryana in the programme. He plays a spoofs the big leaders and tries to prove his point to the voters as he is the only option left for them in the current scenario.
Chaudhary runs his publicity campaign from a hide out in a cow shed located near a highway in Haryana and is aptly assisted by his close associate Mundu. As the election progresses, Chaudhary’s demand keeps on increasing. He gets calls for booth capturing from Bihar and Jharkhand as well, but his focus this time is only to get a seat for himself and win the majority with ‘buffalo trading’.
Vote for Chaudhary will be aired 17 January to 4 February (Monday to Friday) on different time bands starting from 7 am to 10 pm on Zee News.
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.
