India Today Group leads as 65 million Indians watched news YouTube in 2017, says Vidooly
Media conglomerate India Today Group became the most viewed news network on YouTube with 1.92 billion views in 2017, according to Vidooly's Annual Digital Video Report.
India Today Group leads as 65 million Indians watched news YouTube in 2017, says Vidooly / India Today
India Today Group was followed by NEXT9News with 1.89 billion views and ABP News group with 1.32 billion views in 2017. The report further states that 65 million Indians watched news YouTube in 2017.
Meanwhile, regional news content in Hindi and Telugu dwarfed English news content, in terms of views on YouTube, as all the top 10 news networks on YouTube have a regional channel. News is the fourth most watched category on YouTube in India after kids, music, and entertainment content.
| NETWORK | NUMBER OF YOUTUBE CHANNELS | SUBSCRIBERS(in million) | VIEWS IN 2017(in billion & million) |
| INDIA TODAY GROUP | 13 | 8.97M | 1.92B |
| NEXT 9 NEWS | 2 | 3.88M | 1.89B |
| ABP NEWS | 7 | 4.55M | 1.32B |
| TV9 | 6 | 2.39M | 980.07M |
| INDIA TV | 1 | 3.55M | 972.50M |
| NMF NEWS | 1 | 2.44M | 856.89M |
| ZEE MEDIA | 15 | 3.49M | 771.14M |
| V6 NEWS | 1 | 1.50M | 757.23M |
| NETWORK 18 | 20 | 3.05M | 563.87M |
| ONE INDIA | 7 | 1.93M | 559.85M |
Subrat Kar, CEO and co-founder of Vidooly, said: “Our Annual Digital Video Report in News is an effort to examine the viewership growth pattern in the Indian media on YouTube. Interestingly we are witnessing not just new age media companies but also legacy media companies who are investing heavily in growing their digital presence.
"While monetisation still remains a challenge, the ubiquity and massive audience base of YouTube has led to news networks attracting the younger crowd who don’t watch news on television and prefer to consume content on online video platforms.”
Vidooly tracked viewership data from over 80+ news networks in India who have a presence on YouTube. Additionally, Vidooly also tracked anonymous viewership habits of 400 million plus viewers between the ages of 18 - 65 on YouTube in 2017.