Tak added 45 mn subscribers & 9 bn views in the span of one year: Vivek Gaur

The India Today Group last week re-launched its personalised video news app, Tak, in a refreshed avatar. Tak hits the market with a foundation of more than 44+ million subscribers and 9 billion views annually across various social media platforms. The app is a pool of 18 channels offering content in 11 genres across four languages, covering national, regional and special-interest segments.

The Tak architecture is built on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to customise the content in accordance with the user’s preference. For a deeper insight into any specific news or event that the user is interested in, TAK has the Home Feed section, which offers curated videos based on the consumption algorithm of a subscriber and editorial recommendation. There is an interactive interface to enable the users to select the stories and developments that they want to check out.

Creativeland Asia’s design division, CLA Design Lab, has created the master brand design and overall design architecture for Tak. Commenting on the design, Sajan Raj Kurup, Founder & Chairman, Creativeland Asia, said, “It is always exciting to build a brand from the ground up. I personally worked closely with Vivek and his wonderful team on the conceptualisation and direction of this brand. After months of extensive collaborations between our design, strategy, communications and production team, I am excited to see the brand out there ready to take off.”

In an exclusive interview with Adgully, Vivek Gaur, COO, Tak Channels, India Today Group, and Milind Khandekar, Managing Editor, Tak Channels, India Today Group, speak about the new avatar of Tak app, strong regional focus, adoption of technology to offer a greater degree of personalisation and a lot more.

Re-launch of Tak app and its engagement policy

Speaking about the re-launch of the app, Vivek Gaur said, “Tak was first launched in September 2019 and at that time we were in a different paradise. We were trying to do things in a very straightforward manner. We were trying to show all the content which Tak was generating on YouTube by aggregating them onto our common app. While we had one million-plus downloads, there was an issue of why people should come to our platform. During this period, we gained a very high traction on all our social media channels. Earlier, we were the No. 1 prime channel in our country and possibly now in the world. We were the No. 1 sports channel and probably No. 2 in the world, but in the interim, we became No. 1 in UP as well as in Bihar. Even in the case of geographies, we started gaining traction and we continued from strength to strength.”

“The second part is that we decided to not only focus on 21-odd channels, but 18 big channels and smaller ones like Cinema Tak, Tech Tak, that we were to merge into our main news channel. It is like a power brand strategy – you do a few things, but you do it with a better scale. In this new format, we went with AI/ML based technology, which means that what you see and what I see are completely different in terms of our consumption patterns. Over and above personalisation, we also inserted a new thing called the Editor’s Choice. When the viewer sees something and if they think it’s very relevant across the country, we would insert it on the Top N number of channels and after a time they expire,” Gaur said.

He explained that the personalisation is at many levels – one is that what the viewer has chosen.  The second level of personalisation consists of what one has seen and will show the content on the basis of the viewer’s choice, which is based on AI/ML. The third level is if the viewer is on the home page and something live is screening, they will simultaneously be able to see by staying on the home page. The viewer will be able to see all the related stories from a different perspective. The spotlight feature allows viewers to see their favourite anchor.

On the engagement side, Tak has several things in the pipeline and a few that have been launched, including the Poll. When a viewer goes live, he/she can have a live interaction through the Poll. This feature will be visible on the social screen as well as the app screen. On the social screen, the viewer can’t participate, but on the app front, the viewer can still participate and it will be published by the anchor who will be live at that very moment. The second option is to abort the question, which can be taken over by others who can see the question. The third is the Play Along quiz, which is slated to commence in the next three months. Along with these, Tak will also have live debates with its anchors, where the viewer can enroll themselves.

Gaur informed, “We have got around 45 million subscribers and 9 billion views in the span of one year. We are already a scaled business and it makes complete sense to take it to our destination. The main part is that we will personalise the content for each viewer, this means that if you want to watch the news in Marathi you can go to Mumbai Tak, Gujarat Tak for Gujarati and so on. Most of these pillars did not exist in September 2019, but now we have deployed AI/ML technology and other technologies, wherein we can improve both personalisation and engagement. This is what gets people to come back to the app again and again.”

Content strategy and the new features

Milind Khandekar noted here, “A lot has changed in the last two years, we (Tak) have gone into many different languages from just Hindi language earlier. The other big transformation is the launch of Fatak videos, the short version of videos. These Fatak videos are of 30 seconds duration and are available only on our app and not on our social channels, which have some long form videos. These short ones very well made and in 30 seconds the viewer will be able to see the takeaway of the whole story. The second thing is that at any point of time, we have the capability of going live on 10 channels at the same time on our app. Because of these features, audiences won’t be moving from one channel to another for the variety of news.”