ABP News Digital Transformation | 167M Users

167M

users served

48%

user acquisition growth

100

years of heritage

CLIENT

ABP News Network
India’s Leading News Media Group

timeline

12 months
Discovery through platform launch

services

Design thinking + stakeholder alignment
Brand Strategy
Brand identity design
UX/UI Design
Design systems
Interactive advertising solutions

team

VP, Strategy & Editorial, ABP Digital – Tushar Banerjee
Head of Design & Consumer Experiences ( – Saswat Satyadarshi
UI/UX Design – Darshika Gupta
Interns – Aditya Sharma, Shreeya Singh
Product Management – Rajesh Pal, Madhulika Sharma
Technology – Rajanish Singh & team
Editor, Videos – Sunil Goswami

From tradition-bound to digitally native

ABP News: run by highly influential television executives now defining digital strategy—a medium outside their expertise. This gap created conflicting visions and territorial resistance that blocked alignment.

Our challenge: Transform without losing heritage authority. Attract younger audiences without alienating existing readers. Modernize delivery while preserving century-old trust.

the challenge

Legacy as burden, not advantage.

Four-part fragmentation crisis:

Mindset: Senior leadership divided on digital positioning versus television. Unclear strategic direction.

Audience: Traditional readers vs. younger digital users. Content too formal for digital, or too casual for heritage. Satisfying neither.

Platform: Website, app, social operated independently. Different strategies, visual languages, tones. 8 languages, low engagement. No unified experience.

Content: New editorial verticals like entertainment, astrology/spirituality, gaming, personal finance, agriculture etc were added to news website. Confused customers.

Result: 18-35 demographic saw ABP as “my parents’ news source.”

Bullet List:

• Brand perceived as outdated
• Content too slow for digital
• No differentiation from aggregators
• Declining traffic, engagement
• Premium advertisers leaving

the solution

Infotainment : learning fused with entertainment

Pattern recognition through executive sessions. Successful digital news wasn’t “breaking news”—it was in-depth learning fused with emotive storytelling. Making information engaging, not dumbing down.

Strategy: Position ABP digital as infotainment leader — journalism meets relevant simplified learning. Authority preserved, experience modernized.

Platform redesign: Scroll-friendly architecture. Visual timelines (politics), interactive data (economics), short video (complex topics). Easy to understand, depth intact.

Stakeholder alignment: 4 weeks with COO and leadership. Turning point: Showed digital and TV need different positioning. Presented CX architecture without disrupting existing offerings. Alignment achieved.

process

Unification in 4 phases

Pattern recognition

Audit revealed: organized for editorial convenience, not audience experience. Insight: audiences didn’t reject journalism—they rejected outdated delivery.

Strategic reframing

Infotainment framework: Not just news, but information & learning. Leadership aligned on modernization path.

Experience design

Designed for scroll first users. Intuitive to take decisions to engage or move on to find the next story. Design system: credibility (seriousness) + energy (fun).

Activation

Phased 8-week rollout. Google News Initiative partnership. Results in 6 months after launch: 167M users, 48% new users, 48% more views, 100M+ minutes watched. ABP News moved from rank 12 to 3 within 6 monhs.

Logo before & after