What news sparks interest on YouTube? A study of news content uploaded by India's top five Hindi news networks

Abstract

PurposeThe consumption of news from social media is the new trend, still news channels are the authentic source to transmit relevant news to audiences. Social media has gradually left an impact on the audience but the news channels have upgraded and providing various news services online on social media websites. The present study aims to study the type of news videos uploaded by the top five Hindi TV news channels on their YouTube channels with an aim to see which type of videos spark interest for YouTube viewers.Design/methodology/approachBy applying the techniques of content analysis, sentiment analysis and text mining the study aims to measure the average sentiments, top words and the trend of selected popular terms in the comments on uploaded news videos by the top five Hindi news channels over a period of one year.FindingsResults of the study indicate that the news channels are uploading more news videos about crime and investigation, politics, health and protests while uploading fewer news videos covering travel, science and technology, and religion. While the viewers of the participating news channels are more interested in giving their thoughts or opinions in the form of comments on news videos concerning crime, politics, protests and health or that these videos inspire conversation on YouTube.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings might be of interest to content managers of news channels to understand the interest of their audience.Originality/valueThe study's distinctiveness resides in the approach utilised to collect data and analyse the results in order to better understand the online behaviour of news channel audiences.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-01-2022-0007