Mumbai: That Arnab Goswami fronted Republic TV continues to break new ground and is the clear market leader in the English news genre is now an accepted fact. Week on week the channel sets new standards of viewership with its continued reign at the top. Last weekend, another milestone was reached via digital media.
The channel garnered 2 million hits on its website republicworld.com and garnered 10 million video views in 3 days (5th -7th October) with its series of breaking news around trending topics on search.
The channel was the first to carry the interview of Hrithik Roshan, speaking exclusively with Arnab Goswami on the show ‘Nation wants To Know’ on the Kangana Ranaut controversy. While Kangana Ranaut has been quite vocal on the case, Hrithik Roshan had kept silent, and this was a first of its kind interview given to media. Republic TV followed a digital first release strategy with 4 video news snippets of the interview released to its audience via its website, republicworld.com 2 days prior to the full telecast. The episode was simulcast on the website as well as streamed on Hotstar. On Hotstar, the show recorded a 7x increase in reach and 4.7x increase in daily average watch time versus the average for September.
Republic World has hit the top spot in digital news engagement within the shortest period and has made a dent in the digital news industry with its original and exclusive news. Republic’s digital reach and influence now extends not only over India but also includes news followers from USA, UAE, UK, Canada, Australia and the rest of the world. Capitalising on the ongoing trend of live streaming and on demand videos, the channel delighted users with its engaging Live TV experience and original shows to garner a viewership of 10 Million in an extremely short span of time.
Commenting on the same, Vikas Khanchandani, CEO, Republic TV said, ‘It is interesting for us to see the kind of reach our content gets on digital platforms. Being the genre leader we have had access to exclusives including an interview with the Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, the first to interview UP CM Yogi Aditya Nath and now Hrithik Roshan. Republic TV will capitalise on its journalistic strengths and will move to simultaneously distribute content digitally. We have many different digital-specific features including vertical video (mobile-friendly portrait mode) and virtual reality which will form a strong part of the type of content we share. The first few months have been exciting and we look forward to building on this momentum.’
