Aaj Tak was one of the first 24 hour Hindi News Channels to be launched and belonging to the prestigious ’INDIA TODAY’ Group, raised a lot of expectations.
I started viewing the daily news on this channel and was impressed. The reporting was sharp and precise and above all quite fast.As with all good things, this however didn’t long very last.Soon the ad breaks became longer and the news shorter. Following is a detailed analysis of AAJ TAK in its present AVTAAR:
1)Speed : This, till date remains the strongest point of this channel.The news flash and breaking news is usually the first to appear. Zee News comes a close second and Star News (now in Hindi), a distant third.
2)Accuracy:The local news(news of india) is quite accurate but there are a few embarassing lapses.
For eg:When AAJ TAK was doing a special feature on the death of Kalpana Chawla their reporter repeatedly referred the engineering college where she studied as a ’school’.
International news is copied almost directly from CNN and FOX and their is rarely an indigenous report.
3)Content:News content of AAJ TAK is slowly deteriorating with unnecessary loud music accompanied by cheap looking graphics whenever there is a special feature.
Also , the newsreaders tend to repeat questions to their field reporters who give the same old answers.
SPECIAL PROGRAMS: Seedhi Baat:Prabhu Chawla has lost his touch and seems like a complete clown laughing at his own questions and laughing at the answers! He wants to make himself look agressive and dosen’t even hear the answers.
Health AAJ TAK:Extremely short but informative health capsule.
4)Blowing the trumpet:AAJ TAK blows its own.Every AAJ TAK ’exclusive’ is on some news channel 5 minutes earlier. This news has been brought to you first by AAJ TAK.
AAJ TAK reporters were the first to reach accident site.AAJ TAK team first to reach IRAQ. Well, the problem is that they repeat this whenever the news clip comes on.
5)AD BREAKS:A 10 minute news is followed by 5 minutes of ads (mostly underwear, desi soaps, shampoos and detergents).
Totaly Unbearable!
Suggestion:Zee News in its new format seems quite good with decent news coverage.Try it! If u only want speed, go for AAJ TAK.