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Leading digital innovation key for success of BBC Audio and Music
MUMBAI: Unless the BBC‘s Audio and Music division makes a continued progress in three areas, it may have missed its chance to claim a primary place in the lives of people born into a digital world. The three things that will make the difference are: building a creative contribution; leading digital innovation and attracting the best people.
These remarks were made by BBC Audio and music director Tim Davie during the Manchester Media Festival. Says Davie “While the BBC has made significant progress across these areas over the last year, there is much more work to do.”
Davie notes that with the dis-intermediation of traditional media and the all-conquering power of online video, audio or at least radio is destined to recede in its importance. “One of the first questions I asked when I took over the job was: just how much listening of audio is there? And what is radio‘s share of listening? And I do not mean radio listening, I mean all audio: CDs, iPods, online – the BBC has a 55 per cent share of linear radio but what is its real “share of ear? We have just completed our first wave of this work which we hope to run annually, amazingly I don‘t think it has ever been done before. The study is the result of detailed tracking of the behaviour of nearly 2,000 people,” he says.
Audio listening remains strong with an average of 3.8 hours per day, consumed fairly equally across the population. Traditional radio, says Davie, represents an amazing 85 per cent of all audio listening. This falls to 66 per cent among the 15-18-year-olds. This has undoubtedly declined, as iPod and mobile phones have become ubiquitous, but it suggests that one will see a future environment in which traditional linear radio co-exists with on-demand listening.
“But while these results are pretty encouraging, there is clearly no room for complacency. So let‘s turn to audio content itself and my first priority: Building our unique creative contribution. One of the most intriguing and exciting pieces of data that has arrived on my desk in my first year was last quarter‘s Rajar figures which saw Radio 4 achieve record listening and Radio 3 deliver six quarters of sustained growth,” says Davie.
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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.
