Kolkata, Feb 11: The viewership rating of Aaj Tak, the India Today Group's 24-hour television news channel, is reported to be five times that of STAR News and more than three times that of Zee News. The February 10 flash reports of Television Audience Measurement (TAM), show that Aaj Tak's weekly viewership has gone up to 114 minutes from 64 minutes reported in January.India Today executive director, Mr G Krishnan, last Saturday told The Financial Express: "Flash reports received in the morning establish that our weekly viewership has gone up to 114 minutes from the earlier 64 minutes."
According to TAM's report, the news channels of Zee and STAR have weekly viewerships of 33 and 22 minutes respectively. Other news channels like CNBC, BBC and CNN have weekly viewerships of 13, 11 and six minutes respectively, the research outfit reported. Launched as a 24-hour channel on December 31, 2000, Aaj Tak had a viewership of seven lakh, which nearly doubled to 13.86 lakh on January 13, 2001, and further increased to 21.83 lakh, according to a January 20 report.
On January 27, TAM reported a further increase in Aaj Tak's viewership to 28.41 lakh.
The India Today group had started a weekly 30-minute news and current affairs roundup capsule - Newstrack - on Doordarshan in 1990 and continued till 1998. On StarPlus channel too, it had a one-hour weekly news capsule.
In 1995, the group launched a daily 30-minute news and current affairs programme - Aaj Tak - on DD Metro paying an annual telecast fee of Rs 6 crore. The total cost of the programme was Rs 26 crore, including production and overhead expenditure of Rs 20 crore. Mr Krishnan said that during this period the company's annual revenue was around Rs 28 crore. Explaining the rationale behind switching to a 24-hour mode, Mr Krishnan noted that the cost of the daily 30-minute programme on DD Metro vis-a-vis the 24-hour channel, had gone up by close to Rs 11 crore annually, taking into account an annual Rs 1.5 crore payout as transponder fee.
According to him, the channel will start making profits in another three years.
Technologically, the group is at odds with Doordarshan since Aaj Tak operates on a digital mode, while the former is still stuck with its analog system.
Moreover, Aaj Tak were unable to telecast the reports covered by their bureau members adequately. With Aaj Tak switching to a 24-hour mode, reporters are getting ample footagae of their news.
Copyright © 2001 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
