It is noted that a lot of Indian rural internet users find it increasingly difficult to interpret news in English. Adding 12 regional languages to our banquet, News18 is looking to provide news to internet consumers in their mother tongue. Empowering every individual with the latest news that concerns them, we are living by the motto of ‘more’- more readers in more languages!
In just a matter of a year, we have not only seen a steady rise in traffic due to quality news, but we have rolled out several successful IPs. Some of these include GIRS – Global Indian Realty Summit, Tech and Auto Awards 2017 and now we are coming up with an IP in the new age movie space as well. News18 is now in the process of expanding our regional footprint for the digital-first regional audience by offering news in various languages - including Kannada, Odiya, Punjabi, Assamese and more. As a result, we aim to emerge as a digital news hub offering content in the most number of Indian languages by covering the length and breadth of the country.
“The kind of traction that we have received on News18.com’s existing regional properties has been very encouraging. Moreover, we expect the next phase of digital growth to come from the regional pie, given the rising demand for news and information from the internet savvy regional consumer. In order to proactively meet this demand in the coming months, we have decided to further regionalize our content by offering news in as many as 12 different languages, the most by any digital news portal”, said Manish Maheshwari, CEO Network 18 Digital
Traffic has been rising steadily on News18.com, and a tremendous spurt was observed during the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh elections when the website saw real-time users cross 200K, total users cross 8 million, and page views cross 40 million.
Commenting on the election coverage, Rajiv Singh, Business Head, News18.com said, “The content that was published on the result day was extremely well researched, providing both the micro and macro picture of the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh elections. Our real-time users, total users, total page views and average sessions (desktop and mobile) were enormous as compared to our daily recordings. We now look forward to carrying this momentum into the New Year, as we offer news in 12 different regional languages.”
Anushrav Gulati, Business Head Languages & Programmatic (News), Network18 Digital, adds, “In next 5 years, 9 out of 10 internet users in India will be Indic language users. Our own data indicates that Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali and Marathi audience is adopting internet at a faster clip. It is our strong conviction to be a voice of trust for our audience across length and breadth of India on multiple platforms. We have therefore embarked on an ambitious plan to strengthen our digital offerings in 12 indic languages, in addition to our strong television portfolio including News18 India and ETV channels. We are now available in Hindi, Kannada, Urdu, Gujarati, Bangla and Marathi. Tamil, Malayalam, Punjabi and a few more languages will be available on News18.com in coming few weeks.”
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