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Govt should make serious efforts towards digitisation
MUMBAI: Digitisation is inevitable and the scale and potential of this business in India is huge. However, issues like fragmentation and delay in implementation is hurting the broadcasting industry on the whole. This was the consensus of the speakers at the CII Digital Media Conference that was held recently in Mumbai.
Setting the mood, Tata Sky CEO Vikram Kaushik pointed out that every year India is seeing a 25 per cent increase in cable television homes and analogue cable can only provide a limited number of channels. As the number of channels increase, there will be pressure to digitise and increase bandwidth.
“India is the only country in the world where we have six private direct-to-home (DTH) players who are in the business of volumes but not margins. We are working with ridiculous Arpus (average revenue per user),” Kaushik said.
He argued that there is no other way for digitisation apart from making it mandatory. “There is inequality in the value chain. Because we are addressable you can tax us. This is sheer inequality,” he said.
Everyone in the value chain is funding for themselves, but the question is till when? He also urged that government should incentivise the DTH players as they are addressable, transparent and pay tax, unlike local cable operators, who under declare their subscribers and erode the whole value chain.
Bharti Airtel director and CEO – Airtel Digital TV Ajai Puri, while speaking on the pay vs free market, agreed that unaddressability is the biggest hurdle. He said that cable today covers about 100 million homes. All channel bouquets put together cost around Rs 1,400, while the consumer pays only Rs 200-250 per month. Moreover, the money is accounted from only 10-12 million homes due to under declaration by the local cable operators, he said.
Den Networks chairman Sameer Manchanda stressed that we are still an unstructured and predominantly analogue cable industry. “We are still to move from analogue to digital,” he said.
MSO Alliance president Ashok Mansukhani said that 97 per cent of cable in India is non-addressable. He asked for licencing of the LCOs and urged the government not to control pricing. “Government should lift price control and allow a la carte pricing,” he said.
Digicable MD and CEO JagJit Singh Kohli said, “If DTH would not have happened, digitisation would have been a dream.” As the industry players are working towards digitisation, it should see exponential growth, he added.
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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.
