Reuters survey on India's most used news brands

New Delhi, Mar 26: Online news generally and social media specifically have outpaced print as the main source of news among English-speaking young Indian news users.

The University of Oxford's Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism recently conducted a study pertaining to Indian news media.

The Reuters report says, "NDTV (47%) and The Times of India (40% online) are far more widely used among our respondents than any other brands."

The report highlights the concerns of an audience and the role of digital media news in an election year.

The India Digital News Report shows that Indians are embracing a mobile-first, platform-dominated media environment with search engines, social media, and messaging applications playing a key role in how people access and use news.

As many as 68% of those surveyed identified smart phones as their main device for online news with 52% stating that they got their news from Facebook. WhatsApp (52%), Instagram (26%), Twitter (18%), and Facebook Messenger (16%) were the other sources of news.

"Online news generally (56%), and social media specifically (28%) have outpaced print (16%) as the main source of news among respondents under 35, whereas respondents over 25 still mix online and offline media to a greater extent," the Reuters Institute report said.