WAN-IFRA has announced the winners of the Digital Media Awards South Asia 2026, recognising outstanding digital projects that have driven impact through innovation, audience engagement, and effective use of technology.
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!
