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Strategic investors eye scale in Indian cable TV firms
NEW DELHI: Indian cable TV companies will be able to attract foreign strategic investors only after they build scale, have a large primary point ownership and operate in a more friendly regulatory environment.
The cable TV sector has seen investments pour in from private equity firms over the last few years and three multi-system operators (MSOs) have raised capital from initial public offerings (IPOs), but global majors like Comcast have been reluctant to enter the Indian market.
“For strategic investors to come in, the MSOs need to scale up their primary point ownership. The regulatory environment also needs to improve,” said Emam Securities executive director investment banking and media practices head Salil Pitale.
The government has prescribed a foreign direct investment (FDI) cap of 49 per cent on the cable TV sector and 20 per cent on DTH.
The risks in investing in the cable and direct-to-home (DTH) sectors have reduced over the years but the rewards are still far away. While the DTH companies are incurring losses as they play the volume game, the MSOs are struggling to speed up digitisation.
“Various investors have different risk profiles. Some strategic investors are probably waiting for the sector to evolve,” said Astro Group executive director Raghvendra Madhav.
Malaysia-based Astro has made a string of investments in India including Sun Direct, FM radio and niche channels NDTV Good Times and Sanjeev Kapoor’s upcoming cookery channel.
“We had a different approach and decided to participate at an early stage. We took a stake in Sun Direct,” said Madhav, while speaking at the 6th India Digital Networks Summit here today. .
There are several challenges in investing in India as the evolution of the digital story is still at its infancy stage. “A fundamental shift, however, has taken place. It is market forces and not regulation that is taking the entire digitisation forward,” said Madhav.
Sun Direct is in investment mode and the current focus is acquisition of subscribers. “We got to keep the investments up. Raising ARPUs (average revenue per user) is a later stage development,” Madhav added.
Consolidation in the cable TV sector will, however, take place ahead of DTH which has six private players with size.
“There will be more opportunities in the cable sector as it is fragmented. Individual players have taken different strategies. Some MSOs have build reach and revenues and hope to convert them into profitability. Other MSOs have gone ahead with direct point acquisitions. Investors are examining both these models carefully with an open approach,” said Pitale.
Cable TV companies have a combined revenue of Rs 200 billion and the operating margins stand at 30-35 per cent, added Pitale.
The distribution sector is getting stronger and there is a fair amount of richness in valuations of cable TV and DTH companies. As digitisation paces up, investors will find more funding opportunities.
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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.
