Mumbai: The Regional Content Consumption (i.e., content in languages other than Hindi) in 2019, has witnessed growth across all media platforms such as Television, Print, and Digital.
According to the recently launched report, Regional Content Consumption comprised over 50% of Television Viewership, 44% of Films released in theatres, 43% of Newspaper Circulation and around 30% of OTT Content Consumption.
The report also estimated the trend to consume content in regional languages to keep growing over the next few years, particularly on digital media as growth in internet users continues to be led by non-metro audiences.
Regional share of viewership to grow to 55% of Total TV viewership:
Viewership of regional language channels will continue to grow and reach 55% of total TV viewership in India as their content quality improves further.
In 2019, regional channels received 13% more advertising compared to national channels. Ad volumes of Regional TV channels grew by 4% while national channels witnessed a 6% fall in ad volumes.
Implementation of NTO benefited regional languages like Urdu, Punjabi, Bhojpuri, Marathi & Gujarati whose consumption increased over 20% while Tamil and Telugu saw 3% surge.
Regional languages commanded the highest share in circulation and Readership:
Regional readership continues to be the largest in India with 18.9% (IRS Q3) of total readership (TR) in all India and Average issue readership (AIR) of 7.8% in IRS Q3. Moreover, unlike English which has an urban skew, vernacular products are read both in Urban and Rural markets.
Regional language players with 43% share dominated daily newspaper circulation in India. Similarly regional languages magazine almost controlled the segment in India with a whooping 83% circulation share.
Regional language magazine ads increased their share:
In 2019, most regional language Newspaper markets maintained or grew their share of ad volumes. Catching up with the trend, Regional Magazines also increased their share of Ad Volumes from 45% to 48%. Kerala continued as the largest state for regional language with its ad volumes surging from 9% to 10% while share of Tamil Nadu market increased from 6% to 7%
Traditional regional media has the power of feet on the street today and will capitalize that to reach SME and long-tail advertisers across the country, offering traditional plus digital bundles and integrated sales. Ad platforms will enable them to reach a larger set of advertisers, and earn revenues through simple, selfserve models.
With average data consumption per month jumping up 33% in 2019 and Rural internet subscriptions growing faster at 22%, the demand for regional digital content will rise much higher as growth will be driven by consumption in non-metro markets.
Regional language to lead Digital Video consumption in 2025:
EY estimates that time spent on online video consumption is increasingly moving towards regional languages, whose share should increase from 37% of consumption today to 50% by 2025. Moreover, 60% of YouTube watch time comes from outside the top six cities and 95% of vernacular content access comes from tier 2 and 3 cities.
Regional language Online news consumption on the rise:
With Marathi and Malayalam standing next to Hindi in unique online news consumption chart, the scope for news consumption in regional languages is expected to surge year on year.
Trends in online news consumption by ComScore, News/information category, in September 2019 revealed that Marathi 12%, Malayalam 11%, Oriya 8%, Bengali 6%, Telugu 6%, Tamil 5%, Kannada 3%, Gujarati 2% and Punjabi 1%.
