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Embedded media player boosts audience of BBC’s news & sport websites
MUMBAI: UK pubcaster the BBC has announced that The Embedded Media Player, rolled out on the BBC News and Sport websites a month ago, has helped increase the plays and daily unique users by more than 50 per cent. Video and audio clips are now embedded within story pages on the sites, allowing users to access the content more easily and send on to their friends. On bbc.co.uk/news the average number of daily unique users of audio and video has risen from 528,000 to 762,000, while average daily plays of content have increased from 636,000 to 978,000. Click throughs – when a user chooses to access audio or video from a text story page – are up from an average of 2.5 per cent to 20 per cent, with some stories as high as 90 per cent, the pubcaster claims. Some of the highest impact videos have included footage of the Burma cyclone with 248,000 views on 6 May, the BBC exposing a Facebook flaw with 303,000, and Ronnie O‘Sullivan‘s 147 break at the World Snooker championship with 157,143.
BBC head of editorial development, multimedia journalism Pete Clifton said: “The embedded player really does justice to all our fantastic video and audio clips and we are delighted it has been so well received by the users of our News and Sport sites. Our mission is to make our content easier to find, play and share, and the embedded player hits all those aims perfectly.”
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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.
