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Spain’s new HDTV platform launches with GlobeCast
MUMBAI: Starmax HD, Spain’s new HD service, has chosen GlobeCast to provide aggregation, encryption, and delivery of the full bouquet of channels broadcast to millions of households across the country.
Starmax HD has been developed from the ground up to provide the HDTV platform to Spanish viewers in an accessible, affordable package without requiring a contract or minimum term.
GlobeCast’s end-to-end service for Starmax HD includes fibre contribution from several countries; reception of SD and HD channels at the company’s Sainte Assise Teleport in France; signal compression in MPEG-4 with multiplexing, uplink, and satellite capacity; and encryption for Conax.
“Even though more than half of Spanish households have HD-compatible technology, most Spanish consumers are not enjoying HD content to the fullest extent,” said Starmax HD managing director Maciej Sojka.
In addition to GlobeCast’s content management and transmission services, the Starmax platform uses set-top boxes from Ferguson, and viewer access cards from Conax.
Starmax viewers will have the ability to record programmes and play content files from external hard drives, as well as Internet access to streaming content through the set-top box.
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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.
