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Hotstar tech partner Prime Focus signs deals with Turner & sports broadcasters
MUMBAI: India’s Prime Focus, which was recently in news for admitting and plugging the leak of an upcoming episode of Game of Thrones to be broadcast by its partner Star India’s Hotstar, has signed technology deals with prominent traditional and digital broadcasters.
A link to view Episode 4 of Season 7 of Game of Thrones bearing a Star India watermark appeared online three days before its airdate as an outcome of an illegal breach of obligations by PFT’s current and former employees. Following PFT’s forensic investigations, Mumbai Cyber Cell arrested four accused on 14 August.
Prime Focus Technologies (PFT), the technology arm of Prime Focus, recently signed an agreement with Turner Latin America, where PFT’s CLEAR™ Broadcast Cloud will provide work order and supply chain management along with end-to-end process monitoring of critical tasks, with reports and dashboards. “CLEAR was built as an ERP system tailor made for M&E and is well-poised to help Turner improve efficiencies across their supply chain with lowest TCOP, while enabling them to be the first to publish their content to multiple destinations,” said Prime Focus Technologies CEO Ramki Sankaranarayanan.
PFT also manages the content operations for sports broadcasters. Also, the Sports Video Group recently welcomed PFT as a corporate sponsor. PFT creates CLEAR enterprise-resource-planning (ERP) software for the media and entertainment (M&E) industry.
Apart from Star, PFT is working with Disney, Warner Bros., Hearst, CBS Television Studios, 20th Century Fox Television Studios, Lionsgate, Showtime, A+E Networks, Tru TV, HBO, IFC Films, FX Networks, Miramax, CNBC Africa, TERN International, Sony Music, Google, YouTube, Amazon Prime, Hooq, Viacom’s Voot, Cricket Australia, BCCI, and The Associated Press and Indian Premier League.
“We chose CLEAR for three reasons: it is cloud native, multi-platform and easy to integrate through a solid Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) approach”, said Turner Latin America VP – technology & operations Luis Esparza.
Operations at Turner Latin America’s main content processing hub in Buenos Aires (Argentina) will be seamlessly connected with all other supply chain locations through the CLEAR hybrid cloud architecture. This will support multi-location distributed workflows such as subtitling and dubbing, compliance mastering, promo operations, archival, playout delivery as well as schedule driven distribution for OTT and VOD.
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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.
