It grabbed 45 per cent of the city viewership on launch date ? June 1.

Less than three weeks later ? on June 19 ? it gobbled up 69 per cent of market share and touched nearly 1.5 million households.

STAR Ananda, going by the latest Television Audience Measurement (TAM) figures, has got off to a bright start.

None brighter than on the day of the high-voltage Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) elections, when the channel rose well above the market-share majority mark, with Tara Newz a distant second at 18 per cent viewership.

In Calcutta?s cable and satellite homes, STAR Ananda even bettered the figures of Hindi entertainment channels like STAR Plus and Sony, and regional channels like ETV and Zee Bangla, on June 19.

?It is a very satisfying performance but something that we expected,? said Uday Shankar, CEO of Media Content & Communications Services. This joint venture between ABP TV and STAR News manages STAR Ananda.

?There are a lot of political and side-stories on the day of polling. Along with that, for the first time, viewers got a ringside view of how this entire exercise works,? added Shankar.

Two days later, when the CPM ousted the Trinamul Congress civic board, 63 per cent of viewers tuned in to STAR Ananda for their daily dose of local news and views, while second-placed Tara Newz was watched by 13 per cent as the results started pouring in.

The average market share of STAR Ananda among all news channels for the period June 19 to 25 in Calcutta was 52 per cent, followed by Tara Newz at 15 per cent and NDTV India at 8 per cent.

In the rest of Bengal, STAR Ananda?s average market share was 36 per cent, with Tara Newz accounting for 16 per cent and Aaj Tak 13 per cent.

The success of STAR Ananda, Shankar felt, can be attributed to the channel effectively addressing the ?concerns of news-watching people? in Calcutta and Bengal.

?There was little relation between what people wanted to watch and what was being aired before we launched,? he stated.