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What’s On India hops on to Dish TV
MUMBAI: What’s On India, the recently launched consumer TV guidance channel, is now available on Essel Group’s direct-to-home (DTH) company Dish TV.
What’s on India is on channel no 1000 of the DTH platform.
The channel aids TV viewers by informing and recommending a wide variety of program choices across multiple TV channels round-the clock. It also helps viewers to discover the choicest content hidden in the huge clutter of TV channels.
Says Dish TV COO Salil Kapoor, “Consumer TV Guidance has become a necessity with the number of channels and programs available today. We are delighted to have What’s On India available for Dish TV subscribers. We believe this initiative offers a unique method of TV guidance and convenience in program selection to our viewers and is a value addition for a lot of them who have been waiting for such unique content to be made available to them.”
Internationally, viewers use the TV guide channel to plan their forward appointments with their TV sets. Apart from the information on the now/ next programmes, they watch promos of upcoming/ new programs, behind-the-scenes, interviews and peek into the twists and turns of ongoing shows.
Adds What’s On India founder and CEO Atul Phadnis, “When we started out, our vision was to guide TV viewers in their personalised search for TV content. In this journey, we have experienced an overwhelming demand for a TV guidance Channel. We are pleased to be available on the Dish TV platform.”
Meanwhile in a separate development, the company has appointed former My FM sales head Nilesh Bhanushali as national revenue head.
Bhanushali brings over 15 years of experience in advertising sales to the company. Prior to My FM, he had worked with Sahara’s movie channel Filmy, Dainik Bhaskar and the Indian Express group.
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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.
