This year’s Digital Media Awards South Asia highlight excellence in digital innovation, creativity, and audience engagement, showcasing the industry’s push to advance storytelling and tech-driven news experiences.

The Hindu bagged the gold award for Best AI-driven News Product, Format or Strategy, Collective Newsroom for Best Data Visualisation, while Spot On won top honours for Best Emerging News Providers. 

“A great effort from the Financial Times. Excellent community engagement, and crystal clear value both to subscribers and to the FT in terms of subscriber retention,” said a jury member on FT’s Gold win for India Business Briefing. 

Prothom Alo secured gold for Best Marketing Campaign for a News Brand, while 

On HT Digital Streams’ Fintech AI Suite gold win, a jury member remarked: “This is a truly groundbreaking digital product that redefines data monetisation for news publishers. By leveraging content consumption patterns and NLP to build ‘alternative credit profiles’ for credit-invisible users, HT Media has successfully bridged the gap between digital journalism and fintech.”

Participating newsrooms competed across multiple categories including AI, audience engagement, data visualisation, newsletters, video, audio, digital products, and revenue strategies. 

Entries were judged by digital media subject-matter experts, editors and industry leaders based on innovation, audience impact, and journalistic excellence. All Gold winners will advance to WAN-IFRA’s World Digital Media Awards.

The South Asia Awards Ceremony will be held on 25 June 2026 at Delhi, coinciding with Digital Media India 2026 conference.

Top-performing finalists from 78 countries will advance to compete for the global title in each of the 12 categories, with winners announced at the World News Media Congress 2026 in Marseille in June.

The winners are:

Best AI-driven News Product, Format or Strategy

Gold: The Hindu, Bihar SIR
Silver: HT Media Labs, HT Archives Digitisation
Bronze: The Printers Mysore Limited, Varta Setu – News Bridge

Best Data Visualisation

Gold: Collective Newsroom, How bad is the air Delhi breathes?
Silver: Reuters, Surviving the unsurvivable: Sole survivors in plane crashes
Bronze (Tie): Reuters, Investment in AI is exploding
Bronze (Tie): The Quint, Why Indian Forces Lost 72 Fighter Jet Pilots Without Any War in the Last 26 Years

Best Emerging News Providers

Gold: Spot On, Spot On: journalism meeting the moment in a creator economy
Silver: IE Online Media Services Private Limited, APT

Best in Audience Engagement

Gold: HT Digital Streams, Intelligent Notification System with Reinforcement Learning
Silver: Pluc, Under The Same Sun: Gujarat’s Women Powering India’s Solar Transition
Bronze: HT Labs, Slurrp Community: Building India’s Largest Food Platform

Best in Countering Disinformation

Gold: Collective Newsroom, Kumbh Investigation
Silver: The Hindu, The Hindu Written By Journalists
Bronze: Jagran New Media, Sach ke Sathi Senior Citizens Media Literacy Program

Best Marketing Campaign for a News Brand

Gold: Prothom Alo, HHH: Heads Held High
Silver: Malayala Manorama, Manorama Online – Chumma MO it!
Bronze: The Hindu, The Hindu Made of Chennai

Best News Website or App Relaunch

Gold: The Hindu, Young World Club
Silver: The Printers Mysore Private LTD., Deccan Herald and Prajavani Epaper Revamp
Bronze: Jagran New Media, The Daily Jagran

Best Newsletter

Gold: Financial Times, India Business Briefing
Silver: HT Labs, Slurrp’s Just One Thing
Bronze: The Hindu, The Hindu Explains

Best Use of Audio

Gold: Deutsche Welle (DW), Delayland
Silver: Collective Newsroom, The Killing Call – An Investigation
Bronze: The Hindu, Mission Manipur

Best Use of Video

Gold: The Daily Star, Anatomy of BGB shootings in Rampura
Silver: Prothom Alo, The Highway of Death: Jatrabari Killings
Bronze: The Quint, Why Indian Cities aren’t Walkable

Most Innovative Digital Product

Gold: HT Digital Streams, Fintech AI Suite
Silver: The Daily Star, Keeron: Accelerating Careers, Redefining Media
Bronze: Sakal Media Group, Sakal E-paper

Best Reader Revenue

Gold: Manorama Online, Manorama Online Premium
Silver: HT Labs, HT Echo and Organic funnel
Bronze: The Hindu, We Went Middle East, Talked INR, and Found Gold!

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