MUMBAI: India’s leading Hindi news channel Aaj Tak on Thursday added another feather to its cap in week 9 of 2019 as per the BARC data released to its subscribers.

According to Aaj Tak, it fared better than Hindi GECs during the four-day period when the national discourse was dominated by India’s air strikes in Balakot and the news surrounding wing commander Abhinandan’s capture and return to India.

When it came to news channels, Aaj Tak commanded more than 40 per cent higher viewership than its closest competitor in week 9. Interestingly, that margin went up 47% in the last four days. According to the channel, it reached 21 crore consumers in week 9 across genres.

Aaj Tak dominated the chart with 4,62,693 impression ‘000s in week 9, followed by ABP News on the second position with 3,30,055 impression ‘000s. During the last four days, Aaj Tak remained in pole position with 3,30,055 impression ‘000s.

“Since demonetisation in November 2016, Hindi news has been going up. The numbers that we saw last week have been tremendous. Nearly half of the Hindi speaking market in India, which is about 280 million people, watched Hindi news. Normally people watch 40 minutes of Hindi news per day, this week they watched 68 minutes daily. All the channels did a good job of covering the events, and hence the numbers,” BARC India CEO Partho Dasgupta told Aaj Tak.

Aaj Tak says it was the no.1 TV channel in India, beating the likes of Star plus, Star Sports Hindi and Sun TV,  on the day wing commander Abhinandan returned to India (Source: BARC, Market: India, TG:2+, Date: 01st March'19, Gross Impression in 000s)