Mumbai: Republic Media Network announces its significant expansion into Hindi news in the digital space. The Network is launching Republic Bharat’s digital destination which aims to become the leader in Hindi news on digital platforms.
Republic Bharat, Republic Media Network’s Hindi News Channel will break into the world of digital with the motive of redefining the horizon in the genre. With an intense focus on news and breaking it to its users and viewers first, Republic Bharat will redefine content on digital for users in the Hindi audience. Republic Bharat on digital will operate with the same philosophy of ‘Rashtra ke naam’ that has resonated with our broadcast audience across the nation.
Vikas Khanchandani, Group CEO of Republic Media Network on the expansion announcement said that this is Republic’s first big step into Indian languages and the start of the Network’s overall project of doing news in every Indian language.
“We want to leverage the growth of Republic Bharat and popularity within the digital ecosystem. Our English content business has scaled up tremendously and we are looking forward to add 100 mn MAU’s to our digital offerings” Vikas said
“It is humbling that after Bharat has attained the Number 1 position on-air, we seek to build our audience with such scale on digital. Bharat on digital will be a game-changer vis-a-vis breaking the mould of the presently dull Hindi news digital space. Like every other wing of Republic, Bharat on digital will proudly put the people of India first and keep them as the driving force of our content,” Vikas added.
Mr. Devinder Gupta, EVP and Business Head – Digital at Republic World said “After scaling up our Republic World English offering, it gives me immense pride to launch our Hindi digital platform. R Bharat is the number 1 Hindi News brand within Television already and I am confident of building a scalable and profitable Hindi digital business. We enter the Hindi digital market and will shortly plan for our venture into other regional languages as well. With the Hindi Digital platform we will be expanding our digital reach into Bharat, catering to a much larger audience across the country.”
Republic Bharat’s digital wing will operate out of a newly-constructed digital newsroom in Noida. The process of hiring its teams for Bharat’s digital expansion is already underway. A 20,000 square feet space has been undertaken, with a state of the art studio to set independent capabilities to expand and differentiate the digital offerings of the Republic Bharat. The hiring of more than 100 people is ongoing. The Network had put out openings on social media platforms and has been overwhelmed with the response from the applicants across India.
Much like its Digital English news destination, the bharat.republicworld.com platform will pride on doing news across verticals with pace and depth in Hindi. On the Digital Hindi news platform, Republic Bharat will report and publish 1000 stories per day eventually. The Network estimates an aggressive and sharp growth that reaches 100 Million Unique users in the near future.
Republicworld.com has seen a dramatic 34% month on month growth in the past year, which has ensured that the youngest English news platform quickly toppled the legacy players to break into the top 5 in the genre.
With the uncontested popularity of Republic Bharat on broadcast, the Network’s aggressive expansion into Hindi News on digital will challenge the present status-quo and presently-insipid nature of the genre.
Republic Bharat’s expansion comes ahead of the Network’s intent to grow into regional languages in the near future.
