Building on its 100-year legacy with technology at the centre-stage, media conglomerate ABP Network is using a “mobile first approach” and “build for mobile devices” to become one of India’s fastest growing digital news publishers, says its Chief Digital Officer Vijay Thapa.

ABP Network’s vast digital footprint now extends to eight language websites, 20 YouTube Channels and more than 40 social media handles catering to over 250 million users monthly across various languages in India and the world.

“To thrive in the cutthroat digital news market, every publishing house must keep upgrading itself to stay ahead of the competition,” Thapa told PTI in an interview.

As smartphone proliferation and popularity of social media and digital platforms alter news consumption patterns, ABP Network has focused on a mobile first approach, he said.

“Since user experience is our main priority, we ensure our content functions seamlessly for all devices that our audience use or may use in the future, in order to stay ahead of competition at every platform and device,” Thapa, who is supported by Head of Engineering Rajanish Kumar Singh and Product Manager Madhulika Sharma, added.

ABP Network is leveraging Amazon Web Services (AWS) as it scales up. With the coming months promising an action-packed sports events calendar, and given the build-up to general elections 2024, digital tools will be at the forefront of accelerating growth as the network continues to stream video content seamlessly to audiences, he said.

Excerpts from the interview with PTI:

How has technology helped ABP Network stay ahead and nimble in the digital game amid changing preferences, profile and demography of audiences?

ABP Network has been a flagbearer in news and publishing with a purpose to create an informed and open society. We are bold storytellers, leading the way and engaging our public with ground breaking content. It is part of our 100-year heritage and we continue to build on it. Technology has been at the centrestage of all the major developments and upgrades we have gone through during all these years of transition from leading daily newspaper to leading digital publisher in the country.

Today, mobile devices play a key role in digital publishing. According to estimates, as on December 2022, India has nearly 800 million registered broadband subscribers and the average cost of 1GB data is Rs 14. This sets the right foundation and makes India a perfect market for content consumption.

People are switching from physical magazines to digital magazines on their mobiles. With ever increasing internet penetration and devices improving, ABP has focused on this very source of steady customers with a mobile first approach and build for mobile devices.

As a leading publisher, we have maintained our number one position in the last three years across social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Extensive automation through APIs and using new technology solutions have enabled us to scale more than 50-plus social media handles and still stay on top of our quality game.

With ever-improving mobile devices and better screens, crisper audio components and fast connectivity, consumption will only increase. Hence, ABP can leverage its position —it produces content that caters to the trends and demands, with the bandwidth and robust reach to ensure audiences receive the news content they desire at the best quality, as fast as possible.

What are the key strategic pillars of ABP’s digital transformation strategy? 

As far as mobile strategy goes, ABPLIVE has been among the fastest growing digital news publishers in India and during the last three years we have grown fourfold in terms of MAUs (monthly active users).

Today, users are inundated with content as it is free and easily accessible. Hence, they seek tailored content and are keen on new engaging formats such as live streaming, and short form content. ABP believes in sourcing and creating content with a focus on providing its audience with the fastest and authentic news, curated to maximise audience engagement. It gives priority to news breaks on the video format.

How are you leveraging advanced technology, big data, analytics and machine learning to understand and cater to the needs of your audiences better?

To thrive in the cutthroat digital news market, every publishing house must keep upgrading itself to stay ahead of the competition. ABP prioritises user experience, be it nascent trends or tent pole events.

Platform integration, customer experience, broad engagement and constant product development has cemented the group’s reputation and position.

As the news cycle is unpredictable at most times, big data helps in spotting market gaps and potential areas of development for content production and delivery.

Since user experience is our main priority, we ensure our content functions seamlessly for all devices that our audiences use, or may use in the future, in order to stay ahead of competition on every platform and device.

What did cloud technology allow you to do that you couldn’t do before? What did AWS enable you to do better?

We have launched tech only channels using AWS Channel Assembly, and we are using Media Tailor to embed ad(s) in video streams.

We are also using the IVS (interactive live streams) platform of AWS. All these initiatives have helped scale out video distribution operations. The IVS platform has helped to create live streams on-the-go using our in-house content from various genres across YouTube and our native platforms without dependency on any other software.

The precision and efficiency the products bring in have been improving each day and we are hopeful of replacing some conventional tools being widely used in the market with these.

Can you describe your solution and the workloads you are running on AWS?

We are using many AWS offerings such as AWS Elemental Media Tailor (for server side ad insertion), Channel Assembly (that assembles our VOD and live video sources into a live linear stream), AWS Elemental MediaLive (for broadcast grade live video encoding service) and Amazon S3 (storage service for our video library).

The advantage(s) of these AWS services are that they give us scale, security, flexibility with the freedom of pay as you go pricing model.

We are a network of eight language websites, 20 YouTube Channels, 40-plus social media handles catering to over 250 million users monthly across various languages in India and the world. With this mammoth reach and wide range of content coverage we have been able to utilise all these media tools to scale up production and optimise.

While we continue to scale up during the upcoming months, which are very important from the point of sports events, and in the run up to General Elections 2024, these tools shall be at the frontline of accelerating our growth and also stream video content seamlessly to the last mile users.

In terms of business outcomes, what benefits have you experienced as a result of running on AWS?

We have seen improvements in business process performance, cost reductions, shorter time-to-market, effective use of resources and decrease in latency, management efficiency and risk improvements.

We have been able to automate and reduce the TAT (turnaround time) for tasks dependent on servers.

With increase in the utilisation of the tools and enhanced quality of delivery, the effective cost has been reduced, while there is still scope for improvement and room for further optimisation.

With the increase in number of properties and scale, ABP Network needed services which could be relied upon, have proven stability and also have minimum latency in delivery during big event coverage like election vote counting day, exam results day, topical days like the Budget, and entertainment and sports.

While the existing products are still scaling, we are continuously working to improve the efficiency of each of these. The support from AWS on these products along with the ability to reduce the risks has helped us to test and launch all the new products in the market, on the go.

(This story has been produced by PTI in collaboration with Amazon Web Services.)