One in three online consumers access Hindi or English news apps: Dolly Jha

Dolly Jha, managing director, Nielsen media, India, spoke about the power and potential of digital news in India at the first edition of afaqs! ‘The Future of News’ conference. In her presentation titled “The Power & Untapped Potential of Digital Video News”, Jha shared insights about the behaviour and consumption patterns of digital news consumers in India.

Speaking about the impact of digital news amongst online audiences that are proficient in English, Jha shared a survey conducted by Nielsen, revealing how digital enjoys a very sustainable lead amongst users aged between 15 and 55.

Breaking down the online consumption patterns of users, she explained how the consumption of digital news is distributed across multiple touchpoints on the internet.

Between social media, YouTube streams, news apps, and news websites, a fair chunk of consumer time is dispensed variably through these outlets, with social media racking up a share of 24%. This, as Jha explained, is an indicator of why monitoring and measuring the consumption of digital news is important if the publishers aim to monetise their digital presence.

With regards to the reach of digital news, Jha shared data collected by Nielsen amongst the target group of NCCS ABC (New Consumer Classification System), revealing that one in three online consumers in India is accessing Hindi or English news apps.

According to data accumulated between August and October of 2022, news apps that provide both Hindi and English have a reach of more than one-third of total online news consumers, while Hindi news apps have a reach of 24%, double that of English news apps. The data is based on 1 lakh+ Android smartphone users aged between 15 and 45.

Speaking about the return on investment (ROI) figures for brand campaigns, Jha revealed that digital appears to be a noticeably healthier route with its ROI numbers higher than TV, OOH, Print and Radio. The statistics also showed that digital news platforms currently have a very low share in the play of advertisers, with VOD (Video on Demand) platforms relishing a share of 78 per cent in digital campaigns.

Commenting on the potential of news platforms on digital, Jha demonstrated how increasing the number of impressions could help news platforms attain larger audiences. “The data shows that as you pump in more impressions, there is enough headroom for growth. This is a message to all advertisers, that far from saturation, there is plenty of scope for growth,” she said.

While the campaign share for news platforms is low, the size of their campaigns is significantly higher, putting up figures of around 52 million average impressions, followed by social media and VOD with 39 and 21 million impressions respectively.

Jha’s takeaway from these numbers is that news publishers need to solidify their measurement facilities to efficiently monetise their content. “Our experience in the market suggests that only what is measured well and socialised meaningfully, grows,” she opined.

Addressing the need for a functional narrative that digital video news needs to undertake, Jha calls for reinforcement of positives “unabashedly”, and “with empirical data”.

For the news industry to prosper, she suggests that along with proper measurement mechanics in place, digital video news platforms should also work on their ability to enable innovative formats and provide attractive inventory pricing.

News18 presents ‘The Future of News’ Conference is powered by Public App. The platinum sponsor is ABP Live, knowledge partner is Nielsen, and live streaming partner is 24 Frames Digital.