Majority of internet users in India consume news online: Report
The report found that interest in news consumption is higher (63% or 238 million) in rural India compared to 37% of internet users in urban centres.
In India, more than half of internet users are consuming news online, and close to half of them consider trust to be the key propeller for driving news consumption, according to a Kantar-Google report said on Thursday.
The report found that interest in news consumption is higher (63% or 238 million) in rural India compared to 37% of internet users in urban centres, PTI reported.
It also stated that 52% or 379 million internet users in Indian languages access news online through various news apps/websites, social media posts, message forwards, YouTube, etc, while 48% say that online is more popular in peer circles over traditional TV channels.
The report estimates that there are a total of 729 million internet users in Inda.
Kantar said that it conducted over 4,600 in-person interviews and 64 qualitative discussions across 16 cities to understand the news consumption habits of Indian language digital news consumers aged 15 and above in 14 states across 8 languages.
Video is the preferred format of news consumption for online news consumers followed by text and audio. Demand for video is the highest for Bengali content (81%), followed by Tamil (81%), Telugu (79%), Hindi (75%), Gujarati (72%), Malayalam (70%), Marathi and Kannada (66%) each, as per PTI reports.
Consumption of text is high for Gujarati and Kannada content at 20% and Marathi at 18%. Audio news content has high demand in Marathi and Malayalam with 16 per cent of online news readers having interest in them.
YouTube tops the chart as a mode to access online news with 93% interest, followed by social media 88%, chat apps 82%, search engines with 61%, publisher news apps or websites 45%, audio news 39%, OTT or connected TV 21%, etc.
Around 80% of online news consumers have come across news that looks suspicious and is difficult to tag as real or misinformation, the report added.
In the core news segment, entertainment leads the chart with 76% of 379 million online news consumers accessing it. It is followed by crime, and security news of city and locality with 72% interest, and 71% have interest in updates of events pertaining to national, state, and city headlines. Health and fitness top the chart with 71% interest, followed by technology with 61% interest and fashion with 56%.
(With PTI inputs)
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First Published:5 May 2023, 05:44 AM IST
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