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Fox, Time Warner Cable in a spat over contract renewal
MUMBAI: Fox has warned cable subscribers of Time Warner that they may lose access to the Fox network and its sister cable channels if negotiations with the cable platform over carriage renewal don‘t fructify.
In a statement, Fox said that it has “attempted to negotiate in good faith with Time Warner Cable. Our position in these negotiations is entirely reasonable; we are simply asking for fair compensation for the impressive value our Fox programming offers.”
Negotiations are underway for carriage of Fox Broadcasting, Fox Cable and Fox regional sports programming but Fox has already embarked on a print, TV and online marketing campaign.
The move comes a few days after Time Warner Cable unveiled its “Getting Tough” marketing campaign, lashing out at “unfair programming price increases.” The cable platform says that almost 400,000 people visited its Roll Over or Get Tough website and “overwhelmingly supported getting tough on programmers who threaten to hold shows hostage as they demand outrageous price increases, sometimes as high as 300 per cent more than the current contract.”
Says Time Warner Cable chairman, president and CEO Glenn Britt, “Our customers are informing us that they want us to fight rapidly-increasing programming prices. We‘ve heard them and intend to put as much pressure as possible on programmers with unreasonable demands to get our customers the best prices we can.”
This time last year, Time Warner Cable had a disagreement with Viacom over carriage fees. The companies resolved their dispute at the beginning of the year.
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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.
