The Covid-related lockdown has positively catalysed the growth of online news in India in terms of number of new users, repeat users, their time spent along with advertisement and reader revenues. Having said that, since the easing of lockdown restrictions we can see the overall usage pattern softening as other mediums are also making a slow comeback to previous levels of usage and ad spends.
As online news media grows to become the mainline media, there will be more concentrated efforts from the Government to put the right measures in place to streamline and self regulate the online news ecosystem to curb fake news and related objectionable content, which can harm our national interest and to protect our user data.
2022, the first year devoid of Covid lockdown, saw a bit of softening of overall traffic but we had continued growth on advertisement revenues. This is mainly due to major revenge spend happening in a few sectors – like travel, food, education and luxury. This was witnessed across the state during the festive period, in contrast to the previous two Onam seasons which were celebrated under intermittent lockdowns.
Globally, the second half of the year also witnessed the flaring up of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis-related global economic slowdown and higher inflation due to rising fuel prices across the globe. The resulting scenario for India from this is weakening of the Indian rupee and higher inflation from daily staples to airline fuel. We saw interest rates go up from home loans to other key sectors. The impact of not-so-successful China’s Covid vaccination efforts had also put a strain on the global economy mainly due to unavailability of key components like microchips. This also resulted in a funding winter for many of our startups.
No single player can operate in isolation and all the global headwinds, however small or significant, will have its impact on all of us who operate in the digital space. All of us have to absorb,evolve and thrive in this new digital order.
So what are the learnings and what does 2023 behold?
The key learning from the current year is to stay focused on the problem you are trying to solve, which for a news publisher like us is to give seamless cross-device experiences to our readers. The headwinds which we are seeing on Big Tech in terms of resource streamlining will give traditional players like us a better chance to hire world class skillsets, which will augment our problem solving capabilities.
Year 2023 will see renewed focus on your first party data, usage of AI/ML to better understand your audience and tailor-make engaging content for them. We will also witness a quantum leap in regional language readership, lesser dependence on social media for distribution of our content and bring back the much-needed focus on the direct traffic.
2023 will also see the phased 5G roll out in our country, which will help the entire digital ecosystem including news publishers. The proposed data privacy regulations will also help local players to flex their digital muscles giving them a level playing field with other global players. This is in sync with our national digital policy that our national data should reside within our territory.
Another aspect which I am personally kicked about for the coming year is the phased launch of ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce) framework, which will help a lot of indigenous players to test and explore the power of true digital commerce without the control and influence of Big Tech.
{The author is Senior General Manager – Marketing, Manorama Online. Views are personal.)
