iWorld
Aaj Tak ranks highest in reach among the mobile video news category
Mumbai: Aaj Tak, India’s Hindi news channel, has once again secured the top spot in reach in the video news category, as per Nielsen’s Confluence solution covering 15-44 year olds from NCCS ABC households, from India’s one lac+ towns, and are users of Android smartphone.
The analysis encompassed 32 Hindi TV news brands available on respective mobile applications, YouTube channels, and websites, providing a holistic view of audience engagement across multiple digital platforms. Viewers accessing news only on Aggregators or third party apps such as social media feeds are not covered unless the click opens the browser window outside the app to the news website.
The success of Aaj Tak can be attributed to its extensive reach, capturing the attention of audiences accessing the app, website, and YouTube channel on their smartphones. Nielsen’s solution, Confluence, based on which this report has been prepared, considers news domains of Hindi news channels, focusing on Aaj Tak’s website (www.aajtak.in), accounting for both video and text content consumption on the platform, further solidifying Aaj Tak’s dominance.
Sharing his thoughts on the findings, India Today Group digital CEO Salil Kumar expressed his pride in being ranked as the top Hindi news channel. He emphasized that this accomplishment is a testament to their unwavering dedication to providing their viewers with precise, real time, and accurate news. Salil Kumar extended his gratitude to the Indian audience for their loyalty and trust in Aaj Tak, making it their preferred source of news.
The Nielsen’s Confluence solution provides reach, behavior and engagement from its Android smartphone panel (covering content watched on YouTube and top VOD brands) including news watching behavior. By maintaining its leadership position, Aaj Tak has again demonstrated its dedication to providing its viewers with the highest quality news content.
A part of the India Today Group, Aaj Tak is India’s premiere Hindi news channel, offering comprehensive and unbiased news coverage across various topics, including politics, business, entertainment, sports, and more. With a dedicated team of journalists and state-of-the-art news-gathering infrastructure, Aaj Tak has established itself as the most trusted news brand for millions of viewers. Aaj Tak is also the world’s first news channel to cross the 50 million subscribers mark on YouTube.
iWorld
WhatsApp may soon let users to pick who sees their status updates
The messaging giant is borrowing a page from Instagram’s playbook as it pushes to give users finer control over their social circles.
CALIFORNIA: WhatsApp is quietly working on a feature that could make its Status function considerably smarter and considerably more private.
According to reports from beta tracking platforms, the app is testing a tool called Status lists, which would allow users to create named groups such as close friends, family and colleagues, and control precisely which group sees each update. It is a meaningful step up from the platform’s current blunt instruments, which offer only three options: share with all contacts, exclude specific people, or manually select individuals each time.
The new feature draws an obvious comparison with Instagram’s Close Friends function, and the resemblance is unlikely to be accidental. Both platforms sit within Meta’s family, and the company has been nudging them toward a common logic of audience segmentation for some time.
The move also fits neatly into WhatsApp’s broader privacy push. The platform has been rolling out enhanced chat protections and is exploring the introduction of usernames, which would allow users to connect without exchanging phone numbers. Status lists extend that philosophy from messaging into broadcasting.
Meanwhile, Status itself has been evolving well beyond its origins as a simple photo-and-text slideshow. The feature now supports music stickers, collages, longer videos and interactive elements, pushing it closer to the social-media-style story format pioneered by Snapchat and refined by Instagram. In that context, finer audience controls are not merely a privacy feature. They are a precondition for people sharing more.
The feature remains in development and has not been confirmed for release. WhatsApp routinely tests tools that are later modified or quietly shelved. But the direction of travel is clear: the app wants Status to be a destination, not an afterthought. Letting users decide exactly who is in the audience is how it gets there.
