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CNNMoney has high hopes from the Indian market

Mark Thompson, Global Editor, says the website plans to build content that will resonate with the Indian as well as the global audience

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CNNMoney has high hopes from the Indian market

CNNMoney has high hopes from the Indian market

Mark Thompson, Global Editor, says the website plans to build content that will resonate with the Indian as well as the global audience

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Mumbai | October 21, 2016

Mark-Thompson Mark Thompson

Rishi Iyengar, who recently joined CNNMoney as India Editor, has bigger plans for the Indian market. The website has clocked close to two million monthly page views and about 387,000 unique visitors in the last six months since their presence in the country.

Mark Thompson, Global Editor, CNN Money, said, “We are seeing growth ever since we started with a relatively small base. But we see a lot of potential for these numbers to go up and rapidly in the coming years because of the dynamism that we see.”

With Iyengar on board, the publication definitely has bigger plans for the Indian market and as Thompson suggested, they are in process of building ideas for content relevant and suitable for the Indian market. As of now, India contributes about one per cent of the readership to the global numbers of CNNMoney. But Thompson has very high hopes from the market.

As on date, the markets that contribute the most to the readership is the US (being the biggest contributor) followed by, Canada, UK, Australia, Germany, Singapore and other markets where English is the first language or fast coming up as the second language.

“India has seen the fastest growth rates as one of the major economies, which is important to us as both business and editorial as a story to write about. What we have seen as our audience development in the last six months is considerable growth in India and we are attracting young audience here, than we do globally,” Thompson told BestMediaInfo.

The average age of the website's audience in India is 36, while the average age of the global audience is 40. Thompson said, “40 is still young if you compare with the audience of our competition -- financial platforms. But India is even younger for us.”

One of the reasons, as Thompson suggested, is the coverage focus. “We write a lot about the global technology that the Indian audience is very interested in; about economic trends, the second most popular content. Our audience is younger than average and in India more so because of what we cover and also, as to how we present it. We show news in a very straightforward and engaging way.”

The website claims to be making itself engaging and appealing with the stories while selecting and presenting them. Also, how it promotes them socially.

The website has seen a growth of about 16 per cent in terms of monthly unique visitors in India. “The growth is much more in videos, as much as 37 per cent each month. Video is a very essential part of what we do and we are fortunate to be a part of the bigger CNN family and it has very strong video assets.”

The website does have sponsored content and paid advertising slots, but they see their stories based on its merit. As for Indian content, Thompson said, “We will be looking at building newer series of content talk about young entrepreneurs that are emerging in this economy and creating success and go deeper into the things. What will Indian business and economy look like in 2020 or later? We will try to look deeper into some of the categories of the economy. We want to build content that will resonate with the Indian audience as well as the global audience. We are ultimately a global company.”

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

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