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DTH aims peak subscriber growth in FY’11 on back of sports
MUMBAI: Direct-to-home (DTH) operators expect to add 11 million subscribers in the next fiscal due to a spate of sporting events, the peak for any year.
An almost 30 per cent increase over the earlier fiscal will take the total DTH universe to around 31 million.
For the current fiscal, DTH companies are expected to mop up 8.5 million amid lower ARPUs (average revenue per user), fiercer competition and higher subsidies. In FY‘09, the industry added seven million subscribers.
The high-profile list of sporting events due next fiscal include the soccer World Cup, the Commonwealth Games, the T20 World Cup and the ODI World Cup.
Market leader Dish TV hopes to add over 2.5 million next fiscal, up from 1.85 million in FY‘10. “We will be ending FY‘10 with a subscriber base of close to 6.9 million. With a rich line up of sporting events in the next fiscal, we hope to add over 2.5 million subscribers,” a source in the company says.
Dish TV is sitting on a cash pile of Rs 9 billion, following the completion of a rights issue and an investment from Apollo Management. The company, which is netting 22 per cent of fresh subscriber growth, will use the funds to aggressively ramp up its subscriber base.
Airtel Digital TV, a late entrant, is the fastest-growing DTH operator, holding on to 25 per cent of the incremental growth in subscribers. It has close to 2.1 million subscribers, industry sources say.
Tata Sky has 16 per cent of the incremental subscriber growth while Sun Direct has 21 per cent and Big TV 12 per cent, the sources add.
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Inshorts Group chief Deepit Purkayastha joins IAB video council for Southeast Asia and India
The co-founder and chief executive of the short-form content platform has been inducted into the IAB SEA+India Video Council, giving India a stronger voice in shaping digital video frameworks
NOIDA: India has long been the world’s most chaotic, multilingual and mobile-first digital market. Now, one of its most prominent short-video executives is getting a seat at the table where the rules are written.
Deepit Purkayastha, co-founder and chief executive of Inshorts Group, has been selected as a member of the IAB SEA+India Video Council for 2026. Run by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the council brings together senior leaders from Southeast Asia and India to shape standards, best practices and measurement frameworks for the fast-evolving video and digital advertising ecosystem.
The timing is pointed. According to the IAMAI-Kantar Internet in India Report 2025, over 588 million Indians are now consuming short-video content, with growth increasingly driven by rural and non-metro audiences. India’s active internet user base has crossed 950 million, with 57 per cent of users now coming from rural markets. Yet the frameworks that govern how video consumption is measured and monetised were largely designed for single-language, Western markets and have struggled to keep pace with the scale, diversity and complexity of India’s digital landscape.
Purkayastha is no stranger to these debates. He already serves on the AI Council at Marketing and Media Alliance India and as co-chair of the Digital Entertainment Committee at the Internet and Mobile Association of India. His induction into the IAB SEA+India Video Council extends that influence into the global video standards arena.
Inshorts Group sits squarely at the intersection of these forces. Its flagship product, Inshorts, India’s highest-rated short news app, reaches 12 million active users with 60-word news summaries. Its sister platform, Public App, reaches 80 million monthly active users across more than 700 districts and 12 languages, serving communities that most global platforms barely register.
Purkayastha said the opportunity was about building something more representative. “India today sits at the centre of the global video ecosystem, but the frameworks that define how value is created and measured have not always kept pace with the realities of our market,” he said. “Being part of the IAB SEA+India Video Council is an opportunity to contribute to a more representative and future-ready approach, one that accounts for diversity in language, context, and user intent.”
As a council member, Purkayastha will contribute to shaping regional standards across video advertising, measurement and platform governance, with a focus on frameworks that are native to India’s multilingual, mobile-first ecosystem rather than imported from global benchmarks designed elsewhere.
For years, India has been content to play by rules written for other markets. Purkayastha’s induction is a signal that it is done waiting to be consulted and ready to start writing them.
