Indian News Channels rank among the most viewed channels on Indian Television. The term news basically originates from north, south, west, east, the four directions, and refers to the information collected about all the possible fields of human knowledge and reach. Starting with Doordarshan in the 1990`s, television has witnessed the growth of a number of news channels. There are a number of private channels which have joined in the league of news broadcasting and the situation today is such that news has been robotized into an essential commodity.

Monopoly of News Channel
Unlike in the initial days, when Doordarshan monopolized news broadcasting, nowadays numerous news channels are emerging as enhanced and more equipped in terms of their subject matter, presentation, objectivity, sharp editing and high-quality visuals. They serve to cover a wide range of topics ranging from local events to International events, breaking news to news analysis, television soap to Page 3 news. Thus every significant incident is covered by the huge variety of news channels.

Emerging News Channels The emerging media powerhouses provided prime time television content to almost all leading satellite channels in India including STAR-TV, SONY Entertainment, BBC World, Zee, MTV and Discovery Channel. After The India Show, TV18 produced a weekly business news program, India Business Report, for BBC World. Indian viewers had very limited options and for watching the updated news they had to watch Doordarshan and some international news channels like BBC or CNN. In the rush to provide more news, accurate information, Zee-TV launched the news channel Zee News in 1995.

STAR-TV was the other round-the-clock news channel which aired its exclusively 24-hour news channels, STAR News in 1998. A contract of five years was made by Star with Prannoy Roy-owned NDTV (New Delhi Television Company) to provide news content for this news channel. The untiring and exhaustive coverage of the Kargil war between India and Pakistan gained more publicity and attracted more viewers towards the channel giving birth to news icon Barkha Dutt. After the huge success of news programme `Aaj Tak`, the India Today Group launched a 24-hour Hindi news channel with the same name, `Aaj Tak`, in December 2000, which covers India with insight, valour and caters to the regional and local viewers. Within 11 months of its launch, Aaj Tak emerged as India`s leading news channel and was honoured `Best News Channel` award from Indian Television Academy Awards.

NDTV forayed into broadcasting business by simultaneously launching two 24-hour news channels; NDTV 24X7, the English news channel and NDTV India, the Hindi news channel, which targets the Indian Diaspora across the world. `Sahara India Parivar` launched a 24-hour national Hindi news channel, Sahara Samay, on March 28, 2003. It is the first ever city-centric satellite news channel covering 31 cities in India with their own city news bulletins.

Other News Channel
Apart from the ones mentioned above, there are a number of National news channels today which compete on the national stage to provide a constant stream of latest news to the people. Among the most viewed news channels on Indian television today are CNN-IBN, Headlines Today, NDTV Profit, CNBC TV18, Times Now India TV etc. Apart from the national news channels, there are also a number of regional news channels which cater to the regional public in their own language. Among these regional news channels are Tara Newz, ABP Ananda, Manorama News, Asianet, Akhon Khabor, Jai Hind TV, Punjab Today, Channel PTN, TV100, Uttarakhand, Zee 24 Taas etc. Amongst the array of recently launched news channels, Bloomberg UTV, NewsX also deserve special mention.