Mumbai: Today the broadcasting business is seeing a change and digital is seeing a surge and news viewers are split. There are a set of audiences who still prefer watching news on TV and a new set of audiences both domestically and internationally who watch news on the go.
During the last six months, CNN-News18 has been No.1 as per Data Beings and Google Analytics. In January 2023, CNN-News18’s YouTube channel witnessed a record 173 million views, while the Facebook handle crossed 135 million views. In fact, during weeks 6 and 7 our platform has clocked 21 million YouTube views as per Data being higher than the cumulative numbers of the No.2 and No.3 channels.
Indiantelevision.com in a telephonic conversation with Zakka Jacob - Managing Editor - CNN-News18 speaking on their recent foray into digital news and how in a short time they are the No 1 there and much more….
On being No1 on YouTube
The story is very simple. We started this YouTube journey about six months ago. To be very honest we were a little late to the YouTube game. But once we entered in August 2022, the then US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan and we just started our live stream saying she's coming to Taiwan. We had a camera outside the airport and suddenly there was this viewer interest. More than one lac people were watching it concurrently the entire stream from the time the plane landed. That entire stream got some three or four million views and suddenly it made all of us sit up and take notice. We realised that something was going on there. I mean it's not normal that for one stream 3- 4 million people suddenly turn up and watch it. So we then started experimenting with content on our CNN News 18 YouTube page, and we added in a lot of international content.
On September 22, when the Queen of England passed away we streamed the funeral and the streaming crossed 100 mn views which was more than the BBC’s YouTube channel. This was a little difficult to understand why anybody would come to an India-based channel to watch a global news event.
That is when we realized that there is an audience out there, a global audience which wants to consume content not necessarily from the western media point of view or western media perspective but is open to consuming the same content at different angles in the same content from other non-western media. And from then on, month on month some news event or the other made us reach more viewers.
On November, 22 there was FIFA, and then there were the US midterm elections, all of this got us 173 bn views. So if you were to ask me as a news person what is driving this? I think there is an audience. There is an audience in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, and globally who want to consume news. I don't know who these audiences are, maybe they don't see this in the mainstream media there or they don't trust this news to be there in the mainstream media. So they are coming to alternate sources and we are happy that they are coming to alternate sources.
On the audience which prefers watching the news on YouTube
I think it's just convenience, for example, the Union Budget was on 1st Feb, a Wednesday and a weekday when people were at work, at 11:00 in the morning, people were not tuning into their TV as they didn’t have access to their TVs, but they had access to their phones. So the budget speech stream of the Finance Minister's speech which was live on our YouTube page, at one point had about 65 - 70,000 people watching concurrently. At the end of that speech, that converted into a few million views. So I keep telling my team here that, look, ultimately we are content creators.
We are producing this news. How the consumer consumes it, whether it is on television, through cable TV, or on mobile phones, and it is now through connected TV, that's the choice that the viewer is making. That's not a choice that we can dictate. What we have to do is to adapt to the consumer's preferences and take the news to the audience. We have to create the content and take it to the audience, to where the audience is. And if that audience is moving away from television to handheld devices or connected TV, then we have to move in that direction. The onus is on us. So I think that's really what is driving the change. I think the pandemic played a very important role in that.
We saw that in the entertainment genre, which had a lot of people getting into OTT and Netflix and Amazon Prime and all that. Now we're seeing that in news as well. A lot more people are consuming news on their mobile phones.
On the core characteristics of a news viewer on TV as compared to a viewer watching on YouTube?
I think one of the differences that we notice in terms of the content that works on YouTube visually, and the content that works on television, in YouTube people are coming for a little more perspective, a little more context. What we call explainer videos. I think anything that you can explain in five to ten minutes. Let's say, for example, this week, the US President suddenly made a surprise visit to Ukraine. What is the significance, what is the signalling that he's trying to send? If someone can quickly explain why this visit is important, what is the signalling, and what is the messaging of this visit? Why has he done this now and how does it fit in the overall context of the world?
I think that is something that people are searching for people, and looking for context, for perspective, for a little more analysis.
I don't want to make TV news stereotypical, but on TV news you do see opposing points of view and debates. I don't think that's the content that is working on YouTube, it's a little more exploratory, and of course live events, irrespective of what the media is if there is a war happening or any live event irrespective of what the medium is, whether it's on YouTube, on mobile phone, or TV, cable TV, of course, there is no substitute for that. Any live event which is breaking at that moment will get consumed.
On YouTube being a snack-in, snack-out kind of attitude?
So it depends, honestly, it depends on the time of day that they are consuming it. If they are in their office and they come out for a lunch break, they want to quickly see what has happened. That is one kind of consumer or that's one behaviour of a consumer. Whereas on that same medium, on that same platform, we have seen people consume long, lengthy explainer videos at 8 PM or Post 9 PM, when they're at home, when they have finished dinner and they are just browsing through their phones, people are consuming much longer content. So if you look at the average view durations, you can see videos that get up to eight and nine minutes, sometimes even over ten minutes of average view duration.
I think in this day and age when we talk about dwindling attention spans and short videos are less than 60-sec reel, to see that there are a good number of people who are watching longer videos, average view duration of more than ten minutes; I think that's also heartening. I think the consumer is very smart that way. I don't think there's any point for us as content creators trying to second guess what he or she will want to watch or how long they will watch. I think the attempt is to try and give everything. It's like the thali give them everything and then some people will consume something and other people will consume the other things.
On the strategy of what news you put on television and what you put on digital?
If you go to our YouTube page right now, there are probably about 20 live streams on different independent topics. There could be a piece on the Turkey earthquake, there could be something on the Russia-Ukraine war, there could be something happening in domestic US politics and then of course, whatever is happening here in the Supreme Court of India, it's like running 20 different channels. Digital also allows us to share multiple feeds simultaneously.
Whereas on traditional broadcast, you're running one channel at one point in time, which is focusing on one story, you're focused on here and now. This allows us to expand our horizons a lot more.
As I said, the nature of the audience especially on the YouTube is an international audience. They're consuming you wherever in the world they are and consuming your news on YouTube, whereas broadcasting; it's largely a domestic audience and the domestic consumer. A lot of the content on broadcast television would be domestic content on politics, crime and stuff that's happening domestically in India. So the skew would be much more in favour of domestic news on television, whereas on YouTube the skew will be a little more and the flavour will be international.
