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DTH ops to launch HDTV in time for Commonwealth Games
NEW DELHI: Even as Prasar Bharati has announced plans to start beaming in High Definition by the time of the Commonwealth Games in October this year, major private DTH players like Dish TV, Tata Sky and Airtel Digital TV said they would be launching HD services within the next couple of months.
Dish TV chief operating officer Salil Kapoor said, “We are currently evaluating the market and would launch the HD service in the first quarter of next fiscal.”
Airtel Digital Marketing Head Sugato Banerjee told Indiantelevision.com that it was too early to say how much the consumer would be made to pay, but it was clear that huge costs would be involved.
The set-top boxes were bound to be more expensive. “Money would also go into more sophisticated uplinking facilities, and the cost will also go up because each HD channel takes five times the space of a normal satellite channel,” said Banerjee.
Tata Sky also will be introducing interactive channels in the gaming and education space and promote personal video recorder (PVR) STBs following an increasing demand by families trying to keep up with their favourite programmes. Since all channels offer similar programming, it will be the value added services that will help the DTH players, it is felt.
The country today has seven players in the DTH sphere, the others being Dish TV, Sun Direct, Airtel Digital TV, Big TV, Videocon D2H and DD Direct Plus.
Samsung, LG and Sony are ready to launch full HD televisions in India.
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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.
