India sees rise in local news & govt related news readership during COVID-19: Taboola

As the world finds itself working from home to help prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, Taboola, the world’s leading discovery platform released findings of its Moments of Next research series with Nielsen. The findings reveal the shift in online news readership and content consumption pattern of consumers as it relates to COVID-19.

Taboola has released a new research report as part of its Moments of Next research series, which sourced with 5,000 consumers about their preferences for online ads. In addition, for the first time, Taboola is sharing new data about online news readership as it relates to COVID-19, revealing shifts in how consumers are consuming content.

1. Larger online audiences on publisher news sites

Since the WHO declared coronavirus a pandemic, Taboola readership data shows that news publishers have seen an uptick in traffic and engagement with content across the board, including an 8% increase in unique readers, 14% increase in page views and 25% increase in time on page.

2. News readership spikes in different categories

Globally, when looking at news readership over the past 2 weeks compared to the previous 10 weeks, we found large increases in the amount of time spent reading in Local News (63%), Government and politics (62%), Business (59%), Technology (46%), Lifestyle (31%), Entertainment (18%), Gaming (11%)

• U.K.: Lifestyle (52%), Gaming (49%), Local News (38%), Government (36%), Technology (34%)
• France: Government (140%), Sports (61%), Local News (55%), Technology (55%), Lifestyle (48%)
• Brazil: Government (98%), Technology (96%), Business (78%), Local News (73%), Food & Drink (71%)
• Mexico: Technology (57%), Local News (53%), Entertainment (50%), Government (46%), Fitness (42%)
• India: Local news (121%), Government (48%), Lifestyle (18%), Technology (10%)
• Australia: Food/drink (61%), Local news (36%), Business (29%), Gaming (21%)
• Germany: Local news (29%), Lifestyle (25%), Government (21%), Technology (21%), Entertainment (12%)
• Spain: Technology (160%), Local news (150%), Personal finance (32%), Health and fitness (28%), Entertainment (22%), Dating and relationships (16%)

3. Consumers open to ads, as long as ads appear on trusted sources

In a new survey of 1,000 people about what they trust more in times of coronavirus, 4x more people trust advertisements on news sites compared to ads on social media websites.

4. Consumers are more open to ads in certain mindsets

In general, the top moments where people admit to being open to information, including advertisements (their ‘Moment of Next’) are:

• Before going to sleep (31%)
• Taking a break from work (17.5%)
• In the bathroom (16%)