ABP News

ABP News is an Indian Hindi-language free-to-air television news channel owned by ABP Group. Initially launched as Star News in 1998, it was later acquired by the Bengali media group Anand Bazar Patrika (ABP). It won the Best Hindi News Channel award in the 21st edition of the Indian Television Academy Awards in 2022. The channel has been accused by protestors for being partial and supporting the ideology of the ruling government.

History-ABP News was launched as STAR News on 18 February 1998 by satellite television provider Star India in partnership with the NDTV media company, with the latter producing the channel's programming. Initially, a bilingual channel broadcasting in both English and Hindi, its programming turned Hindi-only since 2003, when Star's deal with NDTV expired.

In that same year, the Indian government introduced a guideline limiting foreign equity in the national news business to 26%. As Star India was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hong Kong–based company Satellite Television Asia Region Ltd. it entered into a joint venture with the Ananda Bazar Patrika group (ABP) to form a new company, Media Content and Communications Services Pvt. Ltd. which took control of Star News's operations. ABP held a 74% majority stake while Star India reduced its participation with the remaining 26%.

On 16 April 2012, ABP Group and Star India announced the end of the Star brand licensing agreement. In addition, the company sold its minority stake in MCCS to ABP Group, which in turn renamed the channel to ABP News. The change was also replicated on other regional news channels operated by MCCS such as Bengali-language Star Ananda and Marathi-language Star Majha, which were renamed as ABP Ananda and ABP Majha, respectively. A Punjabi-language channel, ABP Sanjha was granted licence approval in 2014 and launched in that year. A Gujarati-language channel, ABP Asmita, was launched on 1 January 2016.