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Dish TV adds transponders on AsiaSat 5 to expand DTH offerings
MUMBAI: Dish TV India, India‘s largest direct-to-home (DTH) operator in terms of subscribers, will be utilising four 54 MHz Ku-band transponders on AsiaSat 5 to enhance its HD and SD offerings in India.
Additional transponder capacity on AsiaSat 5 will enable Dish TV to significantly increase its DTH offerings to more than 30 HD and 320 SD channels.
“The transponders on AsiaSat have provided us with the capacity we need to reinforce our competitive strength in the Indian DTH market. With this new capacity on AsiaSat 5, we are able to considerably enhance our DTH services to subscribers by increasing our HD and SD channel offerings, providing more value-added services, localised and region specific content. Through these initiatives, we will maintain our market leadership and achieve even more subscribers in the coming months,” said Dish TV India president projects Rajiv Khattar.
Dish TV serves over 9.5 million subscribers with an expanding bouquet of some 270 channels and services.
Said AsiaSat president and CEO William Wade, “We are pleased that AsiaSat has been chosen to facilitate Dish TV’s DTH expansion plans in India, bringing an ever increasing and unprecedented mix of channels to their subscribers. Dish TV and AsiaSat have a long standing relationship and it is a pleasure to assist with their expansion needs. We look forward to meeting the increased demand from the rapidly developing media market in India.”
Dish TV has a vast distribution network of about 1,400 distributors and 55,000 dealers that spans around 6,600 towns across the country. Dish TV has 24*7 call centre with 1,600 seats in 11 different languages.
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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.
