''Aaj Tak'' () is an Indian

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

-language news channel owned by

TV Today Network The TV Today Network is an English-Hindi Indian news television network based in India. It is listed on the BSE and the NSE and consists of the several news channels namely, Aaj Tak (Hindi), India Today Television (English), Good News Today (H ...

, part of the New Delhi-based media conglomerate Living Media group (India Today Group)

Aaj Tak HD

On 14 December 2018, Aaj Tak launched India's first Hindi high-definition channel, Aaj Tak HD. Aaj Tak HD broadcasts News & 2 extra Shows like ''Duniya Aaj Tak'' aired from 2019 () covering world news, ''Business Aaj Tak'' aired from 2019 () covering the financial news of India & Worldwide. Aaj Tak HD also broadcast ''Movie Masala'' aired between 2019 & 2020 () covering the news of Bollywood.

History

Aaj Tak was first broadcast on DD Metro of Doordarshan (DD) in the year 1995. This was then broadcast as a news program of 10 to 20 minutes. Aaj Tak came into existence in December 2000 as an independent news channel and then it became the first complete Hindi news channel in the country to be broadcast twenty four hours. One of the anchors at the time was

Surendra Pratap Singh Surendra Pratap Singh, also referred to as S.P. Singh, (4 December 1948 in patepur, gazipur UP – 27 June 1997) was a leader among Hindi-language journalists. He was a founder and editor of an influential Hindi-language weekly newspaper ''Ravivar ...

. The tagline for Aaj Tak was "" (). Aaj Tak was the first news channel in India to use OB vans. By the time the channel came into existence, it had a reach of 52 lakh households and since then it has become the channel to broadcast in 3 crore households and its viewership in news channels is 56%. On 14 December 2018, Aaj Tak launched India's first Hindi high-definition channel, Aaj Tak HD. A channel rebranding took place in January 2021.

Staff

Executive staff

* Aroon Purie, chairman, India Today Group * Anjana Om Kashyap - Executive Editor * Sweta Singh - Executive Editor * Sudhir Chaudhary - Consulting Editor

Past staff

Past anchors have included Rohit Sardana and

. Uday Shankar has worked as a news director during the initial years of ''Aaj Tak''. * Prabhu Chawla * Abhinandan Sekhri * Punya Prasun Bajpai * Boria Majumdar * Ashutosh Rana *

Reception

The channel has been penalized for propagation of fake news and condemned for being partial and supporting the ideology of the ruling government. In October 2020, Aaj Tak was fined ₹1 lakh and asked to broadcast apologies for fake news regarding Sushant Singh Rajput. The channel published fabricated last tweets by the actor on the channel, claiming that they were made by him a few days before his death and then deleted. Aaj Tak later removed its article with this fake news published in it. Aaj Tak was fined ₹5 lakh by BARC (Broadcast Audience Research Council) for viewership manipulation in a

TRP scam The TRP manipulation scam of 2020 involved the alleged inflation by some television channels of their viewership ratings. The investigation was based on a complaint filed with the Mumbai Police. The 70% revenue for television channels coming from ...

. Between 4 and 5 April 2020, Aaj Tak had broadcast reports about Tablighi Jamaat. A complaint was filed with the

News Broadcasting Standards Authority News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different media: word of mouth, printing, postal systems, broadcasting, electronic communication, or through the testimony of observers and witnesses to events. New ...

(NBSA) in which Aaj Tak was accused of intending to "develop hatred in the minds of the people against a particular community" during the COVID-19 pandemic in India. On 16 June 2021, the NBSA directed that Aaj Tak's broadcasts be taken down from all Internet platforms that linked a COVID-19 outbreak with Tablighi Jamaat in 2020, citing potential "errors in the figures telecast". The NBSA said that the media has "complete freedom to report on the Covid pandemic", but "such reporting must be done with accuracy, impartiality and neutrality", and added "NBSA noted that the broadcaster had admitted that there may have been chances that there were some miscalculations as pointed out by the complaint, which were inadvertent, and the broadcaster had no intention to communalize the issue or malign any community." In June 2022, the National Broadcasting and Digital Standards Authority said that Aaj Tak's taglines on

Umar Khalid Umar Khalid (born Syed Umar Khalid) is an Indian student activist, former research scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru University, former leader of Democratic Students' Union (DSU) in JNU. He was allegedly involved in the Jawaharlal Nehru University ...

‘gave an impression that the accused had already been declared guilty’ and asked the news channel to take down those shows.

Accolades

According to an old 2006 poll jointly conducted by the BBC and

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was est ...

, of specific news sources spontaneously mentioned by Indians, ''Aaj Tak'' (mentioned by 11%) was the most trusted. Aaj Tak had won the award for "Best Hindi News Channel" 19 times since 2001 at the Indian Television Academy Awards.

References

External links

official website
{{Television news in India 24-hour television news channels in India India Today Group Hindi-language television channels in India Hindi-language television stations Television channels and stations established in 1999 1999 establishments in Uttar Pradesh