What is fuelling regional news growth and gripping marketers' attention today?

There’s no arguing that regional content is on the rise owing to the increasing accessibility to cheap data services and increasing smartphone usage. While data and tech enable localised targeting for custom content, digital players often fail to command as high an ad rate for regional content as they do for English content.

Having said that, advertisers and marketers have taken cognisance of the growth that’s happened in the regional content space, including news. In fact, as per the EY Media and Entertainment Report 2023, regional channels (816 hours/ channel) received 19% more ad volumes than national channels (686 hours/ channel) in 2022 as compared to 2021 and that three of the top five news genres which saw the highest increase in new advertisers all pertained to regional languages. 

Speaking to BestMediaInfo.com on the growth registered by the regional content on online news mediums, IndiaDotcom Digital spokesperson drew attention to the fact that earlier there were times when the growth of traditional media had stagnated and hence regional language versions came into being, the same happens to be the case with online media.

“Post covid-19 lockdown, the higher data penetration coupled with the proliferation of smartphones, the online content consumption has exploded and so has the need for regional content. We, at IDPL, have various vernacular properties covering Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, Odia, Punjabi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam, in addition to Hindi,” the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson also went on to add that for FY23, the MAU base across the various channels (website traffic excluding Hindi) has more than tripled in the last two years with the increasing mobile and internet penetration in Tier 2 and 3 regions. 

“News sharing has started moving away from traditional distribution channels to social media and rich messaging tools. There is an increased adoption of vernacular ad campaigns by marketers and brands which coincides with a sharp growth in user-generated content by vernacular influencers.”

Mitul Sangani

As per Mitul Sangani, CEO- Regional News Cluster, Network18 Media and Investments, there are broadly three things that are happening in the regional space as of now- emergence of new users, extension of purchasing power from English-speaking users to regional language users and increase in regional content production.

“It is the only space where we’re seeing new sets of users as almost 90-95% of the new users who are digital or online are regional language users. Secondly, from a content perspective, the predominant myth of English-speaking consumers having the purchasing power in India has been busted as they only account for 200 million people, which is less than 20% of the total mass, and the remaining population comes under language users,” he said.

Additionally, he also emphasised that with access to screens and access to cheaper internet what has happened is users are consuming more content, so much so that the consumption of regional content is also going up coupled with a lot more content production by various players for the regional consumer. As a result, engagement and time spent have also been spurted in the regional content space, unlike the previous years when most of the content was limited to English.

IDPL’s spokesperson also pointed out that compared to English-language platforms, the ad rates are relatively low for the regional markets - owing to the industrial norm and its direct linkage with the perceived premium-ness of the English-language audience. 

“However, we are seeing close to 82% of regional language users falling under NCCS A and B. We are hoping to see a correction in the ad rates based on the socio-economic classification. Certain differential rates (Premium of 10-15%) are paid for innovative and disruptive ad slots. Some of the most sought-after ad slots are roadblocks and Page Push and typically fetches 10-15% premium. We are also seeing a lot of demand coming for Programmatic Guaranteed campaigns,” he stated.

Similarly, Network18’s Sangani also shared the notion that if one were to have a look at the number of overall households, digital news consumption would happen to cover almost 60- 65% of the audiences that TV speaks to, as per Comscore, and that it is only going up year-on-year owing to the multi-screen approach.

“Because English, Hindi and Regional, altogether constitute over 10 major and several smaller languages, the content consumption patterns differ on the basis of language and content creation. Moreover, the ad rates for the regional content may be lower priced than the English content, however, it's still on the upside owing to the increase in viewership which is coming from the regional content and is fuelling more and more brands’ interest in hyper-local targeting which works wonders for digital,” he said.

Commenting on the rationale behind brands’ and marketers’ incrementally piquing interest in regional content in the current times, IDPL spokesperson shared that localised content is in demand due to better targeting and localised advertising which helps marketers reach specific audiences. Of these, certain regional markets such as Tamil and Telugu are in higher demand compared to other vernacular markets, he shared.

“Earlier, the regional markets used to be of low priority to major national brands. Now the emergence of Bharat as a strong consumer market has led to these brands to take a strong interest in these regional markets. The regional content with local flavours and influencers is one of the mainstays in the market today, preferably in video format. Today we can see brands riding on these influencers to take their products to markets,” he said.

Info@BestMediaInfo.com