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Fight is how to migrate ad budgets from offline to online: Dailyhunt CEO

Virendra Gupta says that about 63% of our readers are between 18 and 35 years old

Dailyhunt, Virendra Gupta
Dailyhunt CEO Virendra Gupta
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar
Last Updated : Nov 30 2017 | 12:20 PM IST
Dailyhunt claims to be one of the largest online media properties in India. It offers 100,000 news articles everyday, in 14 languages licensed from over 650 publication partners such as the Indian Express and Vikatan. Vanita Kohli-Khandekar spoke to founder and CEO Virendra Gupta on what that means. Edited excerpts:

Where does Dailyhunt stand currently on traffic, revenues, capital raised and break even?
We are one of the few media properties beyond Google and Facebook in India. Our combined traffic stands at 74 million monthly active users (MAUs). This includes Dailyhunt and One India (a website it acquired in 2016). Facebook at 201, YouTube at 190 and Hotstar at 68 million MAUs are the big properties out of India. We should break even (on cash flow) 12-14 months from now. (Dailyhunt’s investors include Matrix Partners India, Sequoia, Omidyar Network, Falcon Edge and Bytedance. According to reports in February 2017 when Franklin Templeton Private equity exited Dailyhunt it was valued at Rs 2,100 crore).

Of the 74 million MAUs, how many are from outside of India? 
About 10-15 per cent. 

What do you notice on consumption patterns?  
About 63 per cent of our readers are between 18 and 35 years old, 87 per cent are graduates and postgraduates. Between 55 and 60 per cent of them read us on a smartphone device, which costs over $150. Sixty per cent of our users are from the top 50 cities. Fifty per cent come for non-news content. 

Therefore, we are a content platform, not a news platform. Non-news could be anything from cooking, lifestyle, tech, how to use WhatsApp features. What we notice is that the whole definition of news is changing fast. In English, people consume a whole lot of news and other stuff. But in languages and in local content, quality is missing. People are dying to consume good content in Indian languages on technology, lifestyle, and entertainment. These are now mainstream issues. Also, video consumption is increasing month on month. 

What does that mean for content?
We syndicate everything, big and small. So we pass on all these insights to out content partners. For example, a lot of traditional publishers were pushing fresh content during the night, not daytime. We told them that users are looking for freshness. We have also asked content partners to develop videos around Indian festivals, on the kind of stories which work. Also, there is more happening on content for women. 

Have CPMs (cost per mille or cost per thousand) risen with the increase in reach? Has the gap with English narrowed?
The fight is not with English but on how to migrate ad budgets from offline to online. Eighty per cent of the ad budget for local languages goes to newspapers and TV channels. Brands and marketers are rewarding platforms with reach and engagement. So Dailyhunt at 13-14 million active users a day is among the top percentile. Our large reach is our pitch to advertisers. 

How do you deal with fake news and fake traffic?
At the end of the day, reach is the clicks you get. If you are part of a blind network (programmatic ad networks that place ads on a site), these things (fake news and traffic) happen. In our case we have strict security architecture. We keep an eye on engagement and time spent. And we interact directly with the advertiser. Eventually, the responsibility for the performance of our site lies with us. So, if you are in direct contact with both the advertiser and the consumer, these are easy problems to solve. On fake news, we tie up with named entities, so there is already a first check in place. At a second level, people can report a piece of fake news or abuse and we will take action. But if fake news gets on a popular site and then gets onto our system we can’t do anything till they fix it. 

What is the traffic break up — direct versus indirect, app versus website?
Roughly one third each of the 74 million comes from social media, search and direct. The app and the Web bring in half the total traffic. 

News and entertainment are completely different markets. How do you reconcile the two at an ad-sales level? Any plans for pay?
We sell audiences, so the content genre is just one attribute. It is not about the content but the audience. My personal belief is that we are a mass content site. Therefore, a paywall won’t work. That works for niche or specialised content.

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