REPORT

• Some of these start-­‐‐ups have grown very quickly in terms of reach,
engagement, and numbers of users, but they increasingly face head-­‐‐to-­‐head
competition with both (a) the digital operations of legacy media
when it comes to news content and (b) large international technology
companies including search engines and social media, especially for
attention and advertising.
• Sustainable business models take time to build and it is too soon to
judge the prospects of the start-­‐‐ups examined here, but it is clear that
the combination of low advertising rates, limited willingness to pay for
news, and the dominance of legacy media and international technology
companies when it comes to digital advertising means start-­‐‐ups in
India face a challenging environment, even as they benefit from rapid
growth in the number of users and in overall advertising spend.
The start-­‐‐ups we look at here – and others like them – are not exempt from the
wider challenges facing journalism in India, including business pressures,
occasionally weak professional ethics, outside pressures from politicians and
others, and issues around owners’ and funders’ potential conflicts of interest.
But they are poised to seize the opportunities represented by the rapid
growth of internet use and digital advertising in India, they are often
innovative and novel in terms of the journalism they do, how they distribute
it, and how they try to fund it. Journalists and news media – old and new –
across India and beyond can learn much from the work they are doing to
develop distinct forms of journalism fit for an environment that is
increasingly digital and in many ways more representative of the global
experience than North America and Western Europe.
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