MAM
Super Bowl breaks TV viewership record
MUMBAI: The 2010 Super Bowl on CBS has broken all viewership records in the history of American television, amassing 106.5 million people.
According to Nielsen data, the Sunday Super Bowl game marking the victory of New Orleans Saints over Indianapolis Colts in Miami eclipsed the viewership record of the 1983 finale of wartime sitcom M-A-S-H, which was seen by 105.97 million viewers.
The previous most-watched Super Bowl game was last year‘s contest between Pittsburgh and Arizona, as it drew in an audience of 98.7 million. Nielsen says this is the fifth consecutive year that the Super Bowl has averaged more than 90 million viewers.
The television industry, however, has changed dramatically over the last three decades in the US. When the M-A-S-H finale aired on 28 February 1983, there were 83.3 million homes with televisions, which have now increased to over 115 million homes.
“The Super Bowl remains the premier television event of the year and is one of the few programmes in an era of fragmented TV viewership that can still attract a huge national audience,” says Nielsen executive Dave Thomas.
MUMBAI: In India’s fast-moving payments race, Visa has just swiped in a new leader. The company has named Suresh Sethi as its India country head, marking a key leadership shift as it sharpens its focus on digital payments growth in the market. Sethi steps into the role following his recent exit from Protean eGov Technologies, where he served as chief executive officer. He succeeds Sandeep Ghosh, who has moved on after more than four years at Visa to pursue an external opportunity.
The appointment comes at a time when Visa is doubling down on its expansion strategy across India and the wider region, deepening partnerships and accelerating adoption in an increasingly competitive digital payments ecosystem.
Sethi brings with him a broad, cross-market perspective shaped by decades of experience across corporate banking, retail financial services, mobile money and large-scale government technology initiatives. He began his career at Citigroup, where he spent 14 years working across India, Africa, South America and the United States, focusing on transaction banking services within the corporate bank.
His appointment signals a blend of institutional experience and market familiarity qualities that could prove critical as Visa navigates a landscape where fintech innovation, regulatory evolution and consumer adoption are all accelerating at once.
As digital payments in India continue to scale rapidly, the leadership change underscores a simple reality, in a market where every tap, scan and swipe counts, who leads the charge can matter just as much as the technology itself.
