General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20267 min read

The Broken News

The Broken News is an Indian Hindi-language drama web series about television journalism, streaming on ZEE5, that follows two rival Mumbai news channels with opposing editorial philosophies. It is an official adaptation of the British BBC drama Press, created by Mike Bartlett, and was directed by Vinay Waikul and written by Sambit Mishra.¹ Its first season of eight episodes was released on 10 June 2022, and a second season of eight episodes premiered on 3 May 2024.²^•³

Key fact	Detail
Format	Hindi-language ZEE5 web series; eight episodes per season, drama and suspense, U/A 16+ rating²
Source	Official adaptation of the BBC drama Press (2018), created by Mike Bartlett; the original concerned competing newspapers, the remake concerns television news¹^•⁴
Season 1 release	10 June 2022, all eight episodes on ZEE5²
Season 2 release	3 May 2024, eight episodes on ZEE5³
Lead cast	Sonali Bendre as Amina Qureshi, Jaideep Ahlawat as Dipankar Sanyal, Shriya Pilgaonkar as Radha Bhargava, with Indraneil Sengupta and Akshay Oberoi²
Central conflict	Rival channels Awaaz Bharati News, an ethical outlet losing money, and Josh 24/7, the ratings leader built on sensationalism³
Production	BBC Studios India; the first project to emerge from the BBC Studios India and ZEE5 partnership⁵

Spoilers

Premise and characters

The series is set in Mumbai, where two rival television channels operate out of the same building and represent two opposing philosophies of journalism.⁶ Awaaz Bharati News is headed by editor-in-chief Amina Qureshi (Sonali Bendre), an ethical and credible channel that tries to practice journalism as it is taught, and pays for it financially.⁶^•³ Josh 24/7, headed by editor-in-chief Dipankar Sanyal (Jaideep Ahlawat), is India's number one news channel by TRP (Television Rating Point) and pursues brash sensationalism and invasive journalism.⁶

Between the two extremes stands Radha Bhargava (Shriya Pilgaonkar), Awaaz Bharati's star investigative reporter, who believes in ethical journalism but is frustrated by the constraints that come with it.⁶ In season one she pursues a sinister project called Operation Umbrella, which has links to Maharashtra's home minister, while also probing the mysterious death of her roommate in a fire.¹ Other characters include the newcomer Anuj (Taaruk Raina), who shuns integrity on the path to progress, and Pankaj Awasthi (Indraneil Sengupta).⁷^•² The season's eight episodes are titled Happy Birthday, Facts Vs. Accusations, Gagged, The Akhil Kapoor Scandal, Apne Dum Par, Ulti Ganga, Operation Umbrella, and Satyagraha.⁸

The show frames its conflict as a battle of sach (truth) against sansani (sensationalism), and of public interest against propaganda.⁹ Season one's material includes Me Too scandals in Bollywood, electoral bonds, power-hungry politicians, and a dark organization mining big data that threatens the privacy of ordinary Indians.⁷

Season 2

A second season was commissioned in early 2023, to be produced by BBC Studios India, and premiered on ZEE5 on 3 May 2024.¹²^•³ Bendre, Ahlawat, and Pilgaonkar reprised their roles as Ameena Qureshi, Dipankar Sanyal, and Radha Bhargava, with the ideological fight between Josh 24x7 and Awaaz Bharati escalating beyond the newsroom into a personal struggle for survival.¹³

The season's plot threads draw on events prominent in real Indian news: data theft, troll armies, electoral bonds, a mass suicide, an app-based moneylending racket, the death of a social media influencer, a midday meal scam, the mysterious demise of a geologist, an attempted cover-up of a water contamination case, and a big industry seeking to control the flow of news and political power.⁹ Akshay Oberoi joins as Ranjit "Ronnie" Sabharwal, who takes over as the business head of Awaaz Bharati as a representative of a tech giant preparing to roll out thousands of electric vehicles in India.⁹ The season is set in the capital city of a large state where an opposition leader mounts a campaign against the chief minister, and the two national channels take sides in the clash.⁹

Adaptation from Press

The Broken News is the first project to emerge from a partnership between BBC Studios India and ZEE5, under which the two companies agreed to build a slate of ZEE5 Global originals in Hindi with an emphasis on local versions of British formats.⁵ The source series, Press, was created by Mike Bartlett (whose credits include Doctor Foster), starred Charlotte Riley, and was produced by Lookout Point, BBC Studios, and Deep Indigo.⁵

From print to broadcast. The original Press was written for print media, and BBC Studios India adapted the format for the broadcast news industry.¹⁰ Director Vinay Waikul described the change directly: "Press was based on newspapers and ours is about two news channels." He said the team visited studios and met journalists and editors to gather insights about on-field and office pressures, which he credited with making the show richer and more real.⁴ Producer Sameer Gogate of BBC Studios India noted that the writing process involved visiting news studios, meeting anchors, and following news reports.¹⁰ The series also marked Sonali Bendre's debut in streaming originals.¹¹

Reception

Critical response. Reviews of the first season were divided on tone. The Indian Express's Shubhra Gupta found that the series came off more like a crime thriller than the exploration of how TV news shapes everyday discourse it promised, with dramatized elements that slid into filmi territory, though she judged Ahlawat wholly convincing.⁷ Scroll.in's Nandini Ramnath called it a solidly performed cautionary tale, noting the irony of a show championing untrammelled journalism at a time of official and unofficial censorship, and observing that it treads the line between what can be said and what cannot.¹ The Times of India rated the first season 3.5 out of 5, praising the realistic newsroom and edit-meeting scenes and finding the show strongest when it showed how the two channels handled the same story.¹⁴

For season two, NDTV's Saibal Chatterjee gave 2.5 stars, describing an engaging tale of journalists sifting fact from falsehood, with the show strongest in its behind-the-scenes depiction of media companies and the moments when news is actually broken.⁹^•¹⁵

Academic attention. The series has been examined in scholarship on media: Abhijit Maity of Lady Shri Ram College for Women and Jolly Jain of JECRC University published a review titled "Disinformation and media ethics: review of the web series The Broken News" in the journal Media Asia (volume 52, issue 3, pages 530 to 538), published online on 19 August 2024.¹⁶

Other works of the same name

The title has been used elsewhere. Broken News is a 2005 BBC Two comedy satirizing rolling news coverage, written and directed by John Morton.¹⁷ Broken News: Why the Media Rage Machine Divides America and How to Fight Back is a 2022 book by Chris Stirewalt, the former Fox News political editor.¹⁸ Neither is connected to the ZEE5 series.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › International serial drama and telenovelas › South and Southeast Asian serials › Format remakes and cross-national adaptation relationships

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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