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Prime Focus to digitise Associated Press video archive
MUMBAI: The Associated Press (AP) is working with Prime Focus Technologies (PFT) to digitise its video archive, making it available to a new audience across digital platforms.
AP’s film and tape archive contains around 70,000 hours’ worth of footage including more than 1.3 million global news and entertainment stories in 16 mm film and videotape as old as the beginning of the 20th Century.
The project is part of the upgrade project which will see AP switch its entire newsgathering, production and distribution systems to HD to continue to meet the technical, editorial and business needs of its customers in the digital age.
AP director of international archives Alwyn Lindsey said, “Today’s market is driven by giving customers breadth of content, ease of access, and value for money. While we have already digitised around 10 per cent of our archive, it has been a top priority to get all of our most saleable archive footage online and make it available to our customers, wherever in the world they may be. To make this happen, we needed a partner who could handle our global business needs and a project of this scale, and for that reason, we chose Prime Focus Technologies.”
Using the skillsets of its global organisation to digitise AP’s film and tape archives, PFT will then catalogue, manage transcode and deliver AP’s content to a multi-media audience.
PFT has experience in digitising archive content and has partnered with organisations such as the British Movietone Library, British Film Institute, Imperial War Museum, IMG, Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and Eros International.
PFT UK vice president and head Aine Healy said, “PFT is delighted to be working closely with AP to make its valuable archive of footage available to the world, and to preserve it for generations to come.”
The project will be driven by PFT’s content operations platform and supporting services CLEAR.
PFT said that it is delivering this project in an “unprecedented timescale”, creating nearly four million new assets in just 18 months which includes 3,000 hours of film with an average of 60 news stories per hour – creating a total of 900,000 files and 29,000 hours of video with an average of 20 news stories per hour – creating a total of 2.90 million files.
Applications
With 57 per cent single new users, Ashley Madison rebrands as discreet dating platform
Platform says majority of new members now identify as single
INDIA: Ashley Madison is shedding the “married-dating” label that defined it for two decades, repositioning itself as a platform for discreet dating in what it calls the post-social media age.
The rebrand, unveiled in India on 27 February, 2026, marks a structural shift in business model and identity. Once synonymous with married dating, the company now describes itself as the “premier destination for discreet dating” under a new tagline: Where Desire Meets Discretion.
The pivot is data-driven. Internal figures show that 57 per cent of global sign-ups between 1 January and 31 December, 2025 identified as single: a notable departure from the platform’s married core. The company argues that its community has already evolved beyond its original positioning.
“In an age where our lives have been constantly put on public display, privacy has become the new luxury,” said Ashley Madison chief strategy officer Paul Keable. He framed the platform’s offering as “ethical discretion” for singles, separated, divorced and non-monogamous users seeking private connections.
The shift also taps into wider digital fatigue. A global survey conducted by YouGov for Ashley Madison, covering 13,071 adults across Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US, found mounting discomfort with hyper-public online lives.
Among dating app users, 30 per cent cited constant swiping and messaging as a source of fatigue, while 24 per cent pointed to pressure to curate public-facing profiles and early personal disclosure. Some 27 per cent said fears of screenshots or information being shared contributed to exhaustion; an equal share cited unwanted attention.
The retreat from oversharing appears broader. According to the survey, 46 per cent of adults actively try to keep most aspects of their life private online. Only 8 per cent feel comfortable sharing most aspects publicly, while 35 per cent say they are becoming more selective about what they disclose.
Ashley Madison is betting that this cultural recalibration towards controlled visibility can be monetised. By doubling down on privacy infrastructure and reframing itself around discretion rather than infidelity, the company is attempting to convert reputational baggage into a premium proposition.
