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GTPL-owned KCBPL gives Kolkata consumers 45 days to choose packages
MUMBAI: GTPL-owned Kolkata Cable and Broadband Pariseva Ltd (KCBPL) has given its cable TV consumers in Kolkata 45 days time to decide on the television channel packages they would want to subscribe to after the switchover to digital cable TV.
KCBPL, in which Gujarat Telelink Private Ltd (GTPL) owns 51 per cent stake, will announce its channel packages and their prices shortly. The MSO is giving subscribers a 45-day preview of 400 plus digital channels and services at the same price that they are paying now for analogue cable TV.
The channels offered by the MSO include 20 HD and radio channels through its Cisco set-top boxes (STBs). GTPL KCBPL is also planning to offer 10 exclusive international channels across genres like adventure, action, and lifestyle.
GTPL KCBPL board member Sumit Bose said the idea behind the preview offer is to allow customers to make up their mind what kind of packages they want to choose.
“We believe in offering value to our customers and hence we have introduced an exclusive preview offer facilitating our customers to select their choice of channels and services from a wide array of offerings,” Bose said.
After the 45-day preview period, GTPL KCBPL subscribers will have to choose from the channel packages that the MSO will announce.
The MSO says the offer is a way of facilitating digitisation in Kolkata which has gone through a lot of uncertainty on digitisation implementation. The MSO is also targeting lower income groups with Cisco Zapper STB targeted at low ARPU customers to be launched in the later part of this month.
He also said that there is a lot of churn happening in the Eastern metropolis due to the lack of preparedness of other MSOs.
“We are well stocked with Cisco STBs. We have almost finished seeding boxes on our network and are thus in a position to attract local cable operators (LCOs) from competing MSOs who are short of STBs to join our network,” Bose said.
Bose said GTPL KCBPL has upgraded its head-end to provide 400 channels which in two-three weeks time will get upgraded to 450 channels and subsequently to 500 channels as recommended by Trai.
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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.
