News Broadcasting
News18 india exposes the murky world of malpractices in hospitals with operation lifeline
MUMBAI: Recently, multiple instances have come to light about top private hospitals fleecing the patients. From overcharging for treatments to referring expensive medicines, many private healthcare facilities have come under the scanner. While the government is taking actions to discourage such malpractices, its vision of corruption free healthcare system is proving to be difficult. News18 India, through its sting operation, has exposed the deceitful practice of earning from medical insurance as well.
News18 India conducted a sting operation targeting private hospitals in NCR like Rama Hospital, Sonipat and Amrapali Hospital, Noida to name a few. The channel’s undercover team of reporters created a storyline of how their wrestler son, who has a medical insurance of 10 lakh rupees, was badly injured and treated in another hospital. While they incurred an expense of Rs. 50,000, they were not able to claim the money through insurance. With this narrative, the team went to various hospitals where the doctors and the management revealed how they can help them claim their money through various nefarious means.
News18 India’s team caught on camera many people talking about how the patients can get their mediclaim from the insurance companies and make money out of it. The doctors will admit the patient for 10 days on papers and will submit expensive bill to the insurance company. The doctors also revealed how they can also include fake diseases and injuries in the insurance claim to make it more realistic. The hospital authorities on camera that the money earned from the claim will then be divided between the patient, the doctors and the mediators.
Though people might think that these fraudulent practices do not affect their health but they forget that they will have to bear the cost of increased premiums if the insurance companies incur losses. Through Operation Lifeline, News18 India’s team reveals how rampant corrupt practices such as these are bound to have negative consequences for the common man. New policies and laws can be made but the ground reality is a far cry from completely solving the corruption issue.
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.
