Gujarat Tak

About Gujarat Tak

Gujarat Tak is the Gujarati-language digital-first news channel of the India Today Group, publishing video news on social platforms and text, web-story and video content at gujarattak.in. Part of the group's "Tak" universe of digital-first channels operated under TV Today Network, it serves Gujarat's Gujarati-speaking audience with news tailored to the state. The channel first entered the Gujarat market through social media, crossing 100 million views in the 2021-22 financial year, and launched its own native website on 1 August 2022 with an election-focused on-ground political event, "Gujarat Tak Baithak", ahead of the state assembly elections. It was the group's third regional market to get its own native platform, after Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.

A Gujarati digital-first channel

Gujarat Tak was created to serve Gujarat in the Gujarati language through formats designed for digital consumption. Like its sibling channels, it is a natively digital operation: its videos are produced by dedicated digital teams for online and mobile audiences rather than repurposed from television broadcasts. The channel covers Gujarat's politics, governance, business, society and culture, along with national developments of relevance to the state's readers. The Gujarati-language focus distinguishes it within the Tak network's regional portfolio and positions it against both legacy Gujarati media and newer digital competitors in one of India's most economically dynamic states.

Entry through social media

Gujarat Tak's journey began on social media rather than on its own website. The channel built its initial audience on YouTube, Facebook and other platforms, a strategy the group's leadership has described as entering a market through varied social-media platforms before launching an owned digital destination. In the 2021-22 financial year, Gujarat Tak crossed 100 million views on social media, demonstrating the scale of demand for Gujarati digital news video. This social-first growth mirrored the path of the network's other regional channels and validated the decision to invest in a dedicated Gujarati offering.

Website launch on 1 August 2022

The Gujarati-language website, www.gujarattak.in, was launched on 1 August 2022. The launch was staged as a political congregation, "Gujarat Tak Baithak", an election-focused on-ground event that doubled as a showcase for the new platform ahead of the Gujarat assembly elections held later that year. The Baithak was attended by leading figures from Gujarat's political spectrum, including Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, Home Minister Harsh Sanghavi, BJP leader C. R. Patil, Congress leaders Jignesh Mevani and Lalit Kagathara, AAP's Isudan Gadhvi and AIMIM's Waris Pathan. The event signalled the channel's ambition to be a serious political journalism platform from day one.

Leadership on the launch

At the launch, Milind Khandekar, managing editor of the Tak channels, said the group's journey in the Gujarat market had been impeccable, entering through social media and becoming ready within a year to launch its own digital destination. He described the website as featuring exclusively tailored content for the Gujarati-speaking digital audience, with material organised systematically into text-news articles, web stories and videos. Vivek Gaur, chief executive of the Tak channels, noted that after covering Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat would be the third regional market with its own native platform, and said the website's launch would further establish trust, authenticity and knowledge with the end consumer.

Content formats

The Gujarat Tak website offers a full bouquet of digital content: news articles, web stories, videos and photo features in mobile- and desktop-friendly formats. The mix reflects the consumption habits of Gujarat's digital audience, which moves fluidly between text and video. Short-form video, live updates and visual storytelling sit alongside reported articles, giving readers multiple ways into the same story. The format strategy follows the template the group applied across its regional websites, from Mumbai Tak to Rajasthan Tak, adapted for Gujarati readers.

Coverage focus

Gujarat Tak's editorial focus is the state of Gujarat: its government and opposition, its cities from Ahmedabad to Surat, its business and industry, its civic issues and its cultural life. The channel pays particular attention to elections, as its launch event demonstrated, and to the intersection of Gujarat's politics with national developments. Gujarat's status as an economic powerhouse and a politically significant state gives its news agenda a weight that extends beyond its borders, and the channel's coverage reflects both local concerns and the state's national profile.

The Tak network at launch time

When the Gujarat Tak website launched in August 2022, the Tak network comprised 21 channels, 5 websites and 4 mobile applications, with 85.3 million subscribers and page likes and close to 11 billion video views across its social-media platforms, according to the group's announcement. The 18 channels on the Tak app spanned national news, sports, crime, business, regional news, astrology, fitness, lifestyle and literature in Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati and Punjabi. Gujarat Tak's website became the network's fifth native product after CrimeTak.in, TheSportsTak.com, MumbaiTak.in and UPTak.in, with Rajasthan Tak's website following later. The scale figures illustrate how large the group's digital-first operation had become within a few years of its inception.

Gujarat's media landscape

Gujarat's media market combines powerful legacy institutions, including leading Gujarati dailies and television channels, with a fast-growing digital segment. Gujarati readers were early adopters of digital news, and the state's high internet penetration and prosperous, mobile-connected population made it an attractive market for digital-first entrants. Gujarat Tak entered this landscape not as a legacy brand extending online but as a digital native with the backing of a national media group, competing on speed, video quality and social distribution. Its 100-million-view social-media base before the website launch showed that the audience was already waiting.

Elections and political journalism

Political journalism is at the heart of Gujarat Tak's identity, a positioning established by its launch event on the eve of the 2022 Gujarat assembly elections. Gujarat's elections are among the most closely watched in India, given the state's political significance as the home base of the national leadership and its history of decisive electoral contests. By convening leaders from across parties at its inaugural Baithak, the channel announced itself as a platform where Gujarat's political debate would be staged. Subsequent election cycles have kept political coverage central to its output.

Ahmedabad and the newsroom footprint

Gujarat Tak's operations are centred on Gujarat, with Ahmedabad, the state's largest city and commercial capital, as its principal news base. The city's concentration of political institutions, business houses, courts and media infrastructure makes it the natural headquarters for a statewide news operation, and the channel's reporting on the state government, the high court and Ahmedabad's civic affairs reflects that centrality. Coverage extends across the state's major centres, including Surat, Vadodara and Rajkot, giving the channel a genuinely statewide reporting footprint rather than a single-city outlook.

Significance in regional digital media

Gujarat Tak represents the maturation of the regional digital-first model in Indian news. Its path, from social-media channel to owned website, from 100 million social views to a full newsroom product, traces the playbook that India's major media groups developed in the early 2020s for winning state-level digital audiences. For Gujarat's readers, it added a professionally produced, Gujarati-language digital news option with national-group resources behind it. For the industry, it confirmed that regional-language digital news, built mobile-first and video-led, could command audiences in the hundreds of millions and sustain dedicated newsroom investment. As Gujarat's digital audience keeps growing, the channel's combination of statewide reporting, video-first formats and the resources of a national media group positions it to remain one of the defining Gujarati news brands of the digital era.