HYDERABAD: Google News Initiative unveiled the findings of a comprehensive research report – Indian Languages – Understanding India’s Digital Consumer, conducted by Kantar. The report captures the distinct news content consumption preferences and behaviors of the online Indian language news consumer in India.
The effort is intended to serve as an informed searchlight for publishers and advertisers seeking insights about how to engage with this valuable audience to build sustainable offerings.
Over 64 qualitative discussions were conducted by Kantar across 16 cities, and more than 4600 in-person interviews were conducted in 43 urban cities across 14 states from November 2022 until March 2023. Covering both male and femalre respondents above the age of 15 across 8 languages – Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu, the report presents comprehensive insights about digital news consumeres in Indian languages.
Shedding more light on the findings of the research, Biswapriya Bhattacharjee, Director - B2B & Technology, Kantar, said, “The Indian language news consumer has traditionally always been considered less affluent and as having less of an appetite for complex content, as compared to the English language news consumer. This study shatters that myth — the language news consumer is evolved, urban, diverse and demonstrates a willingness to pay digitally. This can unlock enormous opportunity for publishers and advertisers.”
Sanjay Gupta, Country Head and Vice President, Google India, said, “In a world where content can be translated into multiple Indian languages at scale, the opportunity with Indian language content, unconstrained by geography, is no longer regional but global. Content businesses including digital news publishers have the potential to unlock new growth avenues by better engaging with an evolved and affluent cohort of Indian language digital news consumers.“
Durga Raghunath, Head of India News Partnerships, Google, said, “As the progressive shifts in the news landscape from offline to online continue, regional language content has been emerging as the overwhelming choice for consumption on the internet. At Google, we remain committed to collaborating deeply with the industry to facilitate this shift to digital through investment, skills building and insights. And, through our latest effort, partnering with Kantar we’re confident that these nuanced insights will help support the industry to shape sharper product strategies to index on relevant areas for different languages, and help newsrooms prioritize better.”
Breaking the myth of a monolithic Indian language consumer
The Indian language news consumer is a richly diverse group, in sharp contrast to oft-held perceptions of a monolithic, homogeneous “regional” consumer. With 1 in 2 Indian languages internet users consuming news in India, the report highlights that consumers with different language preferences also show differing content preferences. For instance, while entertainment, crime and national or state or city headlines are top core news genres that readers prefer, readers of Malayalam news have a higher preference for international news and education, while Bengali readers prefer sports news.
An Indian language consumer uses as many as 5.05 platforms on an average to access news online with YouTube (93%), Social Media (88%) and Chat apps (82%) emerging as popular pathways to news. 45% online news users in Indian languages discover news via news publishers' websites or apps.
