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Hindi news channel From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Aaj Tak (transl. Until Today) is a Hindi-language news channel owned by the TV Today Network, a part of the New Delhi-based media conglomerate Living Media group (India Today Group). Noted for reporting in favor of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, it has promoted disinformation on various occasions and has been fined for its communal reporting.[1][2][3]
| |
| Country | India |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | India and international |
| Headquarters | Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India |
| Programming | |
| Language(s) | Hindi |
| Picture format | 16:9 (1080i HDTV) 4:3 (576i SDTV) |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | Living Media |
| Sister channels | India Today Good News Today |
| History | |
| Launched | 31 December 2000 (New Year's Eve 2000) SDTV 14 December 2018 HDTV |
| Links | |
| Webcast | Aaj Tak LiveTV |
| Website | www |
| Availability | |
| Streaming media | |
| DD Free Dish | LCN 68 |
| Jio TV | Jio TV+ |
Aaj Tak has faced criticism for reporting misinformation on various occasions.[4]
On 14 December 2018, Aaj Tak launched India's first Hindi high-definition channel, Aaj Tak HD.[5] Aaj Tak HD broadcasts news and two extra shows like Duniya Aaj Tak aired from 2019 (transl. World up to the minute) covering world news, Business Aaj Tak aired from 2019 (transl. Business up to the minute) covering the financial news of India and the world.
Aaj Tak HD also broadcast Movie Masala between 2019 and 2020 (transl. Movie Spice), covering the news of Bollywood.
Aaj Tak was first broadcast on DD Metro of Doordarshan (DD) in 1995. It was then broadcast as a news programme of 10 to 20 minutes. Aaj Tak came into existence in December 2000 as an independent news channel. It then 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.[6][7] The tagline for Aaj Tak was "यह थी ख़बर आज तक, इंतज़ार कीजिए कल तक" (transl. That's all the news for today, wait until tomorrow).[6] Aaj Tak was the first news channel in India to use OB vans.[8]
By the time the channel came into existence, it had a reach of 52 lakh households. It now broadcasts to three crore households and its viewership in news channels is 56%.[7] On 14 December 2018, Aaj Tak launched India's first Hindi high-definition channel, Aaj Tak HD.[5] A channel rebranding took place in January 2021.[9]
Past anchors have included Rohit Sardana[11] and Surendra Pratap Singh.[6]Uday Shankar worked as a news director during the initial years of Aaj Tak.[8]
The channel has been penalized for the propagation of misinformation and criticised for its coverage being supportive of the ideology of the ruling government of BJP.[12][13]
In 2017, Aaj Tak was criticised for propagating a false claim that a fatwa allowed Saudi Arabian men to eat their wives. That same year, Aaj Tak also came under criticism for propagating a false claim that the Indian army had retaliated against Pakistan following attacks against Indian personnel in Kashmir.[4]
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.[14]
Aaj Tak was fined ₹5 lakh by BARC (Broadcast Audience Research Council) for viewership manipulation in a TRP scam.[15]
Between 4 and 5 April 2020, Aaj Tak had broadcast reports about Tablighi Jamaat. A complaint was filed with the News Broadcasting and Digital Standards Authority (NBDSA) 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.[16]
On 16 June 2021, the NBDSA directed that Aaj Tak's broadcasts be taken down from all Internet platforms that linked the COVID-19 outbreak with Tablighi Jamaat in 2020, citing potential "errors in the figures telecast".[17]
The NBDSA 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, " The NBDSA noted that the broadcaster had admitted that there may have been chances that there were some miscalculations as pointed out by the complaint, which was inadvertent, and the broadcaster had no intention to communalise the issue or malign any community."[18]
In June 2022, the News Broadcasting and Digital Standards Authority said that Aaj Tak's taglines on Umar Khalid ‘gave an impression that the accused had already been declared guilty’ and asked the news channel to take down those shows.[19]
In March 2023, Aaj Tak faced widespread social media ridicule after the clip of its coverage went viral, where the channel's representatives were seen filming gangster Atiq Ahmed urinating while in transit from Gujarat to Prayagraj under the custody of police.[20]
A report by Bloomberg accused Aaj Tak of being "frequently laudatory of Modi".[21]
In March 2024, The News Broadcasters & Digital Association (NBDSA) fined Aaj Tak for Sudhir Chaudhary's 'tukde tukde' and 'Khalistani' remarks, against the former US president Barack Obama and penalised the channel over 'Love Jihad' shows.[22][23]
Aaj Tak has also been accused of foreign interference in the Canadian matters by the Rapid Response Mechanism Canada.[24][25]
According to an old 2006 poll jointly conducted by the BBC and Reuters, of specific news sources spontaneously mentioned by the Indians, Aaj Tak (mentioned by 11%) was the most trusted.[26]
Aaj Tak has won the award for the "Best Hindi News Channel" 19 times, since 2001 at the Indian Television Academy Awards.[27]
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