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Pehla ties up with Sun, launches two new packages
MUMBAI: Pay TV platform management company, Dubai – Arab Digital Distribution (ADD), is launching two new regional packages — Pehla Spice and Pehla Spice Plus in Middle East and North Africa.
For the new regional packages, the company has partnered with the Sun TV network.
The Pehla Spice packages offer a mix of entertainment, infotainment and News in Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada on the four regional channels – Sun TV, Surya TV, Gemini TV and Udaya TV. The other channels in the package are Star Vijay, Asianet News and the already existing Asianet Middle East, Kairali and TBO.
The Pehla Spice bouquet offering 18 channels is priced at AED 45, while Pehla Spice Plus with 27 channels is available for AED 110. The bouquets will soon be available on cable in the UAE du and Mozaic TV by Qtel in Qatar.
ADD’s Pehla Media & Entertainment MD Majed Sahelli said that with the addition of the new regional bouquets, the company is diversifying its content and also increasing options for subscribers, while simultaneously making content more affordable.
“We are targeting the South Indian diaspora which makes the largest chunk of expat South Asian community across the Middle East. The nominally priced regional packages provide customers with an option of choosing exclusive packages that better suits their content requirements”, he added.
Marketing and business development Alwyn Rodrigues said, “While the tie-up with ADD offers enormous strategic advantage to Sun TV Network, as Pehla is the fastest growing pay television platform in MENA, the new content line-up empowers us to leverage a large audience exclusively interested in regional content. The new additions further strengthen our position as the regional market leader catering to varied and ever evolving media needs of our South Asian customers.”
Sun Group CEO Tony D‘Silva said that there is a huge demand for regional content in the Middle East, which the company hopes to tap into with its mix of programming and language options.
ADD also expects a curtail in content piracy, having initiated a sustained anti-piracy campaign in the recent months with initiatives like shifting to a new more secure encryption and providing and installing free MPEG4 decoders for all its subscribers.
The unavailability of these channels forced a large number of South Indian expats to resort to unauthorised services from India; and now with legitimate accessibility, the company is expecting nearly 200,000 new viewers.
ADD is packaging the bouquets with an enticing launch offer that gives subscribers four months of free viewing time for an annual subscription along with a free decoder.
ADD packages already reach out to nearly 1 million viewers across the region on three different bouquets and offer more than 60 channels covering different genres of entertainment and information.
With the highest audience reach across the GCC, Pehla, which caters to the Asian diaspora, is the fastest growing pay television bouquet in the Middle East.
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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.
