iWorld
Times Internet adds Durga Raghunath and Rohit Saran to leadership team
NEW DELHI: Times Internet has embarked on an ambitious plan to cater to users across the world. To strengthen this next chapter of user-centric transformation, the company has roped in Durga Raghunath and Rohit Saran to lead its largest base of users into the next generation of engagement and reader revenue.
Raghunath has been named digital head of Times of India, Mirror Brands (Mumbai Mirror, Pune Mirror, Bangalore Mirror and Ahmedabad Mirror), Newspoint, Gadgets Now and Etimes. Most recently as SVP Growth at Zomato and previously as founder and CEO of Firstpost and Network18 Digital, Raghunath brings a unique understanding of transactions, news and publishing. She began her career in book publishing with HarperCollins in New York. She has an MBA from the Indian School of Business and a publishing degree from Columbia University.
Saran has been named as the chief editor of Times Internet. He was previously the managing editor for The Times of India (print) and executive editor of The Economic Times (print). He has held senior editorial positions at the India Today Group where he was executive editor of India Today and editor of Business Today. He also edited The Khaleej Times in Dubai. He has conceptualised and launched several publications, including ET Magazine, ET Wealth and Money Today. He was also the editor of the south Asian edition of Harvard Business Review and Scientific American. He holds a master’s degree in economics and has a deep interest in data and digital journalism.
Times Internet CEO Gautam Sinha said, “We are excited about our next stage of technology-led relationships with users, content producers and advertisers. Durga’s entrepreneurial energy and experience, and Rohit’s broad editorial exposure and deep understanding make us believe we can set and achieve audacious goals over the next five years. Both senior leaders would report to Times Internet COO Puneet Gupt.”
Gaming
India’s broadcasters say no to Fifa World Cup 2026
Fifa has slashed its asking price by 65 per cent but India’s broadcasters are still not buying
MUMBAI: The world’s biggest sporting event cannot find a single taker in the world’s most sports-mad nation. Fifa’s television rights for the 2026 World Cup remain unsold in India, and the clock is ticking loudly.
To shift the property, world football’s governing body has already swallowed hard and cut its asking price from $100m to $35m, bundling in the 2030 edition as a sweetener. It has not worked. Indian broadcasters have looked at the offer, done the sums and quietly walked away.
The reasons are brutally simple. The 2026 tournament, co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, kicks off in a time zone that turns India’s primetime into a graveyard shift. Most matches will air between midnight and 7am IST, a scheduling catastrophe for advertisers chasing mass reach. The 2022 Qatar edition was a gift by comparison, with matches dropping neatly into Indian evenings. North America offers no such luxury.
The market itself has also changed beyond recognition. The merger of Star India and Viacom18 into JioStar has gutted the competitive tension that once sent sports rights prices soaring. Where rival bidders once slugged it out, there is now a single dominant buyer, and it is in no hurry. JioStar has valued the rights at roughly $25m, a full $10m below Fifa’s already-discounted floor price. That gap has so far proved unbridgeable.
Broadcasters are also nursing a ferocious cricket hangover. Between 2022 and 2023, Indian media houses committed well over $10bn to cricket rights alone, covering IPL, ICC events and BCCI domestic fixtures combined. After a binge of that scale, appetite for a football package that delivers a fraction of the ratings, in the dead of night, is close to zero.
The economics of football broadcasting make the maths even harder. Cricket, with its natural breaks every few overs, is an advertiser’s paradise. Football offers a 15-minute halftime and precious little else. Recovering a nine-figure rights fee from a single half-hour ad window is a stretch at the best of times. These are not the best of times: the Indian government’s tightening grip on real-money gaming and gambling advertising has vaporised a category that once underwrote the economics of big sporting events.
Nor is the World Cup an anomaly. Indian Super League valuations have cratered. English Premier League rights have softened across successive cycles. The cooling of football as a broadcast commodity in India is structural, not cyclical.
With the tournament opening on 11th June, Fifa is running out of road. It may yet blink and meet JioStar at $25m. Or it may go direct, streaming the entire tournament on its own platform, Fifa+, or cutting a digital deal with YouTube, and hoping that a generation of Indian football fans finds its way there without a broadcaster to guide them.
Either way, the beautiful game’s Indian chapter is looking decidedly ugly.
