Navigating 'News Overload': The Role of Personalisation, Niche Focus, and Media Ecosystem Evolution

Industry leaders explore the impact of content oversupply, role of personalisation, and the potential of niche content in shaping the future of news media.

The oversaturation of news across various digital platforms, as well as traditional TV and print media, is leading to an excess of news content. This oversupply is affecting the demand for news and impacting the quality and audience engagement of news platforms.

Many of these issues were addressed at a panel called, ‘A Cornucopia of Content’ at the 2024 edition of afaqs! Diginews conference.

The panel was moderated by Sreekant Khandekar, co-founder and CEO of afaqs!

The panelists were: 

Megha Mamgain, managing editor- Health & Lifestyle and Vice President at Jagran New Media 

Siddharth Varadarajan, Founder Editor at The Wire

Rohan Tyagi, Product Head at NDTV

Durga Raghunath, Head, News Partnerships, India and SE Asia at Google

Soumya Menon, Chief Growth Officer at OneIndia

Siddharth Vardarajan of The Wire, opened the conversation by acknowledging that the digital news space lacks the traditional market mechanism where price controls supply and demand. “Even if there is an oversupply as the fact is,  the readers pay next to nothing for news content on digital. Aside from a few outlets like The Hindu and Business Standard and a few like them, most digital news content is free.”

Despite this, he believes the average reader can differentiate between credible and substandard outlets, and an oversupply of content may be preferable rather than restricted access to news due to censorship or pricing.

Personalising 

Soumya Menon of OneIndia agreed with Siddharth but added that personalising news platforms is essential to counter the overwhelming content as seen today. “The problem of ‘plenty’ gets solved when news publishers bring personalisation to their platform, connecting with their audience at a personal level,” she sates.

However, Rohan Tyagi, the product head at NDTV cautioned that personalisation may be a double-edged sword. “ While it can solve the problem of oversupply by curating content, it also perpetuates the need for endless content creation, making it difficult for publishers to monetise or premiumise content.” He says that even IPL ads have endless inventories despite being one of the most expensive platforms for advertisers.

According to Durga Raghunath of Google, this problem can be solved by entering into niche subjects. She noted that audiences are actively decluttering their content consumption and choosing outlets that offer deeper value. “While the oversupply of content can be overwhelming, building loyalty with targeted groups instead of chasing millions of views helps publishers retain quality engagement,” she reiterates.

Branding

According to Google’s Raghunath, publishers need to position their brands more distinctively in a cluttered space to attract paid subscribers. She further says that the shift in news consumption patterns is driven by three trends: the rise of the 24/7 news cycle, the expansion of regional language content, and the multi-format versatility of content. According to her, focusing on niche content will help individual publications in the future.

“Many publishers are stepping off the breaking news bandwagon to focus on in-depth coverage of specific topics. For example, SPorts was considered a very general beat but today you have atleast 22 players covering sports. This allows for better quality and engagement and also allows publication startups to have break-even subscription models.”

The ecosystem issue

Varadarajan of The Wire also stated that one of the big issue when it comes to news media is the ‘sameness’ of news. According to him reliance on corporate or government advertising backed journalism influences media content. “This is why independent digital news creators are gaining larger audiences because they’re free from these constraints, offering more authentic reporting,” he adds.

Catch the entire conversation here:

We would like to thank our sponsors, MGID (Co-Partner) and Jagran New Media (Gold Partner), for their support.