Daybreak

Nearly a decade ago, Hotstar, Netflix, and Amazon Prime entered the scene and positioned themselves as the anti-TV. No fixed showtimes. No endless ad breaks. No re-runs you had to sit through just because nothing else was on. For the first time, we were in control. TV became personal. It became on-demand. And best of all—it was ad-free. It felt like there was no going back.

But now something has shifted. Subscriber growth is stalling, and that’s making streaming platforms nervous. Really nervous. Their answer? Bring back ads. Amazon Prime Video is the latest to jump into India’s ad-supported streaming game, also called ad supported video on demand or AVOD. And Netflix? It’s reportedly toying with the idea of a free, ad-supported tier here—just like it’s doing in a few other markets. In other words, OTT is starting to look a lot more like the very thing it was supposed to replace

Have we come full circle? Or is this just the natural evolution of an industry growing up?  Daybreak hosts Snigdha and Rahel speak to Swati Mohan, the former head of marketing at Netflix India, to find out

Tune in.

P.S The Ken’s podcast team is hiring! Here’s what we’re looking for.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.Listen to the latest episode of Two by Two here

Back in 2016, the Internet and Mobile Association of India set up an all new club for what was then a very small cohort of digital leaders in corporate India. It was called the all-India Chief Digital Officer club. 

Back then, there were only about five-six CDOs that were members. The point of the initiative was to give legitimacy to this new, emerging role. But soon enough, the initiative fizzled out. Not because the role didn’t take off or anything. Actually, the opposite. The initiative became redundant because the role became even more popular than they had anticipated. So it started with 5-6 members, but within the next four years its membership rose to 50 and then doubled the next year. 

You see, digital transformation has become THE buzzword for corporate India. And in the process, the CDO has become part of the companies top leadership. 

But the question is — where does that leave the CIO? 

Tune in. 

*This episode was originally published on 18 December, 2024 

P.S The Ken’s podcast team is hiring! Here’s what we’re looking for.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.Listen to the latest episode of Two by Two here

For decades, the whole process of getting a loan approved was infamously painful and long winded. But now things have changed. Getting a loan is a whole lot faster than before. And that’s because of the disruptor to end all disruptors — artificial intelligence.

A bunch of companies have entered the scene with specalised AI tools to speed up different aspects of the loan-approval process.  In fact,  Indian AI startups have managed to raise nearly 750 million USD in 2024 and the banking and financial sector was one of the top drivers of this growth.

Now at first glance, it seems like a win-win for both the borrower and the bank. But there’s a catch. This surge has come with a lot of scrutiny from the RBI.

Tune in.

*This episode was first published on Jan 15, 2025

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Family offices—the ultra-rich who used to hand over their money to VCs and wish them well—are now wondering why they ever bothered. Why did they pay someone to do what they could do themselves, on their terms?

Their primary gripe? The funds are not returning money. 

Of course, the so-called middlemen in this scenario aren't too pleased. After all, they are losing a substantial amount of business in the process. 

But it all boils down to one thing – who’s running the money. 

Tune in.

Daybreak is looking for a talented audio journalist with at least two years of experience. Check out the role here.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

At first glance, things seem to be really looking up for India’s very own budget-friendly hotel chain Oyo. It’s had some pretty big wins in the last few months. 

So why then is its eventual IPO still the subject of such widespread speculation? 

The Ken's Deputy Editor Seetharaman G put it quite well in the latest edition of his newsletter on the Indian stock market, ‘Long and Short’. He said – ‘few companies are as good as Oyo Hotels at not going public’. 

Its listing has been a few years in the making. It first filed in 2021. Then again in 2023. And then it was just about to give the share sale another shot when its largest shareholder, Softbank, threw a spanner in the works.

Here's the thing — between the delayed IPO, top notch rivals, and demanding investors, things will only get harder for Oyo. 

Tune in. 

If you have any thoughts or questions about this episode, send them to us as texts or voice notes on Daybreak’s WhatsApp at +918971108379. 

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Just two days after the Pahalgam terror attack, alarm bells went off inside India’s financial system. A stern message from an HDFC Bank executive summed up the mood: “They may come for us now.”

The national security tragedy triggered a sudden and sweeping crackdown on India’s digital payments ecosystem. Behind closed doors in Delhi, top officials from the Finance Ministry, Home Affairs, and the Reserve Bank of India launched a coordinated push to track suspicious merchant activity online like gambling, betting, drug trafficking. The idea was to follow the money all the way to its possible links with terror funding.

The fallout? Payment aggregators are scrambling, banks are under intense pressure, and merchant screening firms are suddenly flooded with work. Everyone’s rechecking everything.

But who's the collateral damage?

Tune in.

 If you have any thoughts or questions about this episode, send them to us as texts or voice notes on Daybreak’s WhatsApp at +918971108379. 

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Zara and Tata’s retail arm, Trent, have been partners for 15 years. But that relationship might be coming to an end because Zara’s not pulling its weight anymore. Its share of Trent’s overall sales has dropped from 28% to just 10% in six years. Its rivals like H&M and Uniqlo have moved faster, reached more cities in a much shorter time span.

Meanwhile, Trent’s been busy. It used what it learned from Zara and built something better. Zudio, its budget fashion brand, just hit $1 billion in sales in FY25. It’s fast, affordable, and everywhere. Now, Trent’s planning to upgrade Westside into a premium brand to go head-to-head with Zara and H&M.

How Zara lost its edge and what did Trent get right?

Tune in to find out.

If you have any thoughts or questions about this episode, send them to us as texts or voice notes on Daybreak’s WhatsApp at +918971108379. 

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

One clear sign that Angel One—India’s third-largest discount broker—is serious about reversing its fortunes is that it bought itself a front-row seat at India’s most expensive distraction: the Indian Premier League.

That’s ambitious. Especially for a company that just flunked its latest earnings test.

 Between fiscal year 2020 and 2024, Angel One proudly nuked its full-service past—no more phone calls, no more reports, no more advisers—and became a pure-play discount broker. Just an app, an order button, and some notifications. When the markets were roaring, that was enough.

But now, not quite. Enter Plan B: be a super-app.

Tune in.

Daybreak is looking for a talented audio journalist with at least two years of experience. Check out the role here.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

In March this year, a software developer that goes by Pea Bee online published a blog rather ominously titled ‘Everyone knows all the apps on your phone’. 

He found that several Indian app-based startups are flouting rules of Google Play—Android’s app store—to access people’s data.  In particular, some apps use a workaround to scrutinise the names and usage patterns of other apps on people’s phones. In real time.

Now, the fact that apps have a lot of your data may not be a surprise to you. We’ve been pretty cavalier about our data for some time now. Remember Digi Yatra? 

But the scary thing is that Indian companies are equally nonchalant about the user data they collect. The result? Data-security breaches have been on the rise. 

So what is a data conscious Indian customer to do? 

Tune in. 

If you have any thoughts or questions about this episode, send them to us as texts or voice notes on Daybreak’s WhatsApp at +918971108379. 

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Physics Wallah’s brand new initiative, the PW Institute of Innovation, was pitched as an alternative to the tough IIT route that didn’t compromise on quality or career prospects. It even came with a scholarship, a residential campus in Bengaluru, and a shot at a good job after graduation. On paper, it looked like the perfect deal.

However, students who signed up had to juggle a confusing mix of courses, keep up with a changing curriculum, and struggle through administrative chaos. Even basic things like internships, placement support, and faculty consistency didn’t materialise the way they were promised. 

For a company known for making quality education affordable, this was a far cry from its coaching roots.

But Physics Wallah isn’t just running an institute anymore, it’s a company preparing for the stock market. 

If you have any thoughts or questions about this episode, send them to us as texts or voice notes on Daybreak’s WhatsApp at +918971108379. 

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.