ABP News is an Indian

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of North India, northern, Central India, centr ...

-language

free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscripti ...

television news channel owned by

ABP Group ABP Pvt. Ltd. is an Indian media conglomerate headquartered in Kolkata, West Bengal. It was established in 1922. History The company in recent years did mass layoffs at various times. Current assets Newspapers * ''Anandabazar Patrika'' � ...

. The news channel was launched in 1998 originally as STAR News before being acquired by ABP Group. It won the Best Hindi News Channel award in the 21st edition of the

Indian Television Academy Awards The Indian Television Academy Awards, also known as the ''ITA Awards'', is an annual award ceremony organised by the Indian Television Academy to honour excellence in Hindi-language television. Ceremonies Categories Popular Awards * ITA A ...

in 2022. The channel has been accused by protestors for being partial and supporting the ideology of the ruling government.

History

ABP News was launched as STAR News on 18 February 1998 by satellite television provider

Star India Disney Star Private Limited is an Indian media conglomerate and a wholly owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company India. It is headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Disney Star network runs more than 70 TV channels in eight languages, rea ...

(Disney Star) in partnership with the

NDTV New Delhi Television Ltd is an Indian news media company focusing on broadcast and digital news publication. The company is considered to be a legacy brand that pioneered independent news broadcasting in India, and is credited for launching ...

media company, with the latter producing the channel's programming. Initially, a bilingual channel broadcasting in both English and Hindi, its programming turned Hindi-only since 2003, when Star's deal with NDTV expired. In that same year, the Indian government introduced a guideline limiting foreign equity in the national news business to 26%. As Star India was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hong Kong-based company Satellite Television Asia Region Ltd. (Star TV), it entered into a joint venture with the Ananda Bazar Patrika group (ABP) to form a new company, Media Content and Communications Services Pvt. Ltd. (MCCS), which took control of Star News's operations. ABP held a 74% majority stake while Star India reduced its participation with the remaining 26%. On 16 April 2012, ABP Group and Star India announced that they would discontinue the brand agreement that allowed MCCS to operate as "Star News". Thus, Star India would quit the news business in order to focus on entertainment. In addition, the company sold its minority stake in MCCS to ABP Group, which in turn renamed the channel to ABP News. The change was also replicated on other regional news channels operated by MCCS such as

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the ...

-language Star Ananda and

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

-language Star Majha, which were renamed as

ABP Ananda ABP Ananda (formerly Star Ananda) is a free to air Bengali news channel based in Kolkata, West Bengal owned by ABP Group. Founded on 1 June 2005 as Star Ananda, a joint venture between Star India and the ABP Group, the channel was renamed ...

and

ABP Majha ABP Majha is a Marathi news TV channel based in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Rajiv Khandekar is the executive editor of the channel. Anandabazar Patrika News is the abbreviation for ABP News Network Pvt. Ltd. i.e. ABP Group operates a multiple Langu ...

, respectively. A

Punjabi Punjabi, or Panjabi, most often refers to: * Something of, from, or related to Punjab, a region in India and Pakistan * Punjabi language * Punjabi people * Punjabi dialects and languages Punjabi may also refer to: * Punjabi (horse), a British Th ...

-language channel,

ABP Sanjha ABP Sanjha is the Punjabi language news channel, launched in 2014, by Media Content and Communication Services (MCCS), a news broadcasting company, owned by the ABP Group. See also * ABP Group * ABP News * International broadcasting * List of ...

was granted licence approval in 2014 and launched in that year. A Gujarati-language channel,

ABP Asmita ABP Asmita is an Indian 24-hour regional news channel broadcasting in the Gujarati language. It operates from Ahmedabad, Gujarat. It is owned by ABP Group. The channel was launched on 1 January 2016. Face of the channel Leaders *Brijesh Ku ...

, was launched on 1 January 2016. In November 2016, Avinash Pandey became a chief operating officer (COO) of ABP News. All of ABP's channels, including ABP News, were gradually revamped throughout the second half of 2020, beginning with the renaming of parent-subsidiary ABP News Network to ABP Network in July 2020. A further rebranding, which affected the channels themselves, took place in the morning of 16 December 2020, with the launch of simpler, more modern logos and a new graphics package developed by Saffron Brand Consultants for all of ABP's channels. Additionally, ABP News acquired new equipment able to record content at 1080p and launched its own HD feed; the channel's SD feed turned into a downscaled, 16:9 widescreen version of the HD feed. Prior to the HD feed launch, ABP News had launched a test HD feed in February of that same year, exclusively on satellite provider

Hotstar Disney+ Hotstar (also known as Hotstar) is an Indian brand of subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned by Novi Digital Entertainment of Disney Star and operated by Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution, both ...

and on ABP's online platforms, which was basically an upscaled version of the SD channel airing 4:3 content stretched to fill the 16:9 screen. Although ABP Network's regional language channels were also rebranded, they remained airing at 4:3

standard definition Standard-definition television (SDTV, SD, often shortened to standard definition) is a television system which uses a resolution that is not considered to be either high or enhanced definition. "Standard" refers to it being the prevailing sp ...

Satellite interruptions during the show Masterstroke

In 2018, former host Punya Prasun Bajpai stated that when he criticized the performance of one of prime minister

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the List of Prime Ministers of India, 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the List of chief ministers of Gujarat, Chief Minist ...

's projects directed towards poor farmers in his television show ''Masterstroke'', ABP News' satellite broadcasting was disrupted each time the program was aired. Former employees reported that the channel owners had pressured the host, Punya Prasun Bajpai, to quit the company. After his resignation, these technical issues immediately stopped. Another host, Abhisar Sharma, who challenged Modi's public safety strategies on ABP News, was fired that same day. He also said he was under pressure to leave.

Fake news

In April 2020,

Newslaundry ''Newslaundry'' is an Indian media watchdog that provides media critique, reportage and satirical commentary. It was founded in 2012 by Abhinandan Sekhri, Madhu Trehan and Prashant Sareen, all of whom earlier worked in print or television j ...

found that ABP News had published fake news regarding the

COVID-19 pandemic in India The COVID-19 pandemic in India is a part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (). As of , according to Indian government figures, India has the second-highest n ...

. The case involved ABP News citing non-existent research to praise the strict lock-down imposed on the country by PM

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Abp News Television stations in Mumbai 24-hour television news channels in India Foreign television channels broadcasting in the United Kingdom Television channels and stations established in 1998 Hindi-language television channels in India ABP Group Former News Corporation subsidiaries Mass media in Mumbai 1998 establishments in Uttar Pradesh