News Broadcasting
Infomedia India announces joint venture with Reed Business Information
Mumbai, December 14, 2005: Infomedia India Limited, India’s leading special interest and directory publishing company, has announced forming a joint venture with the world’s leading publisher and information provider Reed Business Information US (RBI US), a division of US $ 8.5 billion Reed Elsevier Group plc. Reed will hold a 51% stake in the resulting entity, Reed Infomedia India Pvt. Ltd.
Reed Business Information is the world’s largest B2B publishing unit with revenue of $US 2.3 bn. and operating profits of $US 400 mn. It offers business professionals in the media, manufacturing, electronics, construction and retail industries more than 100 market-leading business-to-business publications, 75 webzines and web portals, custom publishing, directories, research and direct-marketing lists.
Reed’s portfolio includes titles such as Variety, JCK, Control Engineering and Logistics Management. This JV will license the titles from Reed Business Information to bring into India. Says Mr. Prakash Iyer, Managing Director, Infomedia India Ltd., “We are delighted to be Reed’s publishing partners in India. With Infomedia’s local industry insights and Reed’s global expertise, we are hoping to provide Indian businesses with high-quality content in magazines that become mandatory reading.”
Says Mr James Casella, Vice Chairman of Reed Business, who is also overall responsible for development of BRIC markets (Brazil, Russia, India & China), “Reed Business is excited by the opportunity to enter the fast-growing Indian marketplace. We are looking to combine Reed Business Information’s global brands and vertical industry expertise with the publishing capabilities and local knowledge of Infomedia India to create the pre-eminent portfolio of B2B titles in India.” Confirming that India is a priority market for Reed, he added, “India, with its growing consumerism, a buoyant economy, and mass affluent population, has opened up a market for critical business information – a space where Reed is the acknowledged leader.”
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.
