In 2026, major media organizations worldwide are rapidly reinventing themselves through digital expansion, breaking out of traditional news publishing and broadcasting to build fintech offerings, health-tech ventures, and over-the-top (OTT) streaming ecosystems that go far beyond classic media revenue models. This trend reflects how media firms are adapting to consumer demand for integrated digital experiences while capturing new audience segments and revenue streams.
One prominent example is India’s Times Network, where under the leadership of digital transformation executive Rohit Chadda, the company has launched a suite of tech-centric products across financial services, health-tech, education tech and entertainment. Times Network’s digital initiatives include ET Now Advisor, aimed at delivering financial education and fintech solutions, and Health & Me, an AI-driven health companion app designed to assist everyday wellness. Alongside these, the network has also pushed into OTT and gaming with platforms like Times Play and niche sports streaming on channels such as Pickleball Now, illustrating a multi-vertical digital ecosystem strategy that blends information with interactive services.
This media-tech integration is not unique to India. Globally, big media and tech firms are increasingly converging digital finance and entertainment under one umbrella to lock in customer engagement and diversify revenue. While pure media brands once relied heavily on advertising and subscriptions, they are now leveraging embedded financial services, mobile payment ecosystems, AI-assisted consumer tools, and OTT streaming platforms to deepen user relationships and open new monetization avenues. Recent fintech market research projects explosive growth in digital finance solutions, further driving media firms’ interest in this area as consumers expect seamless digital experiences across content, payments, and services.
In the streaming space, OTT platforms continue to proliferate and innovate with new business models and features that blur the lines between entertainment, news, and lifestyle content. Grameenphone’s Bioscope+, launched in 2025 as part of its integrated digital ecosystem, aggregated content from over a dozen OTT services, offering users personalized content discovery and unified subscription payment models in a single app — a sign of how telco-media collaborations are shaping modern content delivery.
Meanwhile in the digital distribution arena, companies like Endeavor Streaming have strengthened their capabilities by expanding content delivery and subscriber management tools that serve professional sports leagues, studios, and broadcasters with direct-to-consumer OTT solutions. These platforms now offer analytics, monetization engines, and flexible streaming options that support global audience engagement beyond traditional broadcast windows.
Beyond media firms themselves, the broader digital economy is interacting with these expansion strategies as fintech, health tech, and OTT growth create new synergies between industries. Fintech trends predict that digital financial services will continue innovating with AI-powered tools and embedded finance solutions, pushing more organizations — including non-traditional players like media platforms — to incorporate financial products directly into their digital ecosystems.
Health technology is another acceleration point. With global health-tech investment rising, and hybrid care models gaining traction as cost and workforce pressures change care delivery, media enterprises are increasingly interested in wellness and wellness content integrated into their offerings. Although comprehensive reporting on specific media brands entering health tech this year is still emerging, press releases and sector briefs show that healthcare innovation is gaining traction across digital spaces, making it likely that media platforms will continue pursuing collaborations or launches in this area.
These strategies are part of a larger industry transformation where digital media, finance, health and on-demand entertainment are converging to form integrated platforms that serve multiple facets of consumer life. In a competitive global digital landscape, companies that fuse content creation with transaction-based services and digital experiences stand to benefit from multiple monetization streams and higher user retention — setting a new standard for how media businesses operate in 2026 and beyond.
This strategic shift also reflects broader market dynamics: mobile app engagement and OTT consumption continue to grow rapidly, with entertainment and non-gaming mobile apps projected to account for significant portions of user spend and engagement in the coming years, indicating fertile ground for media firms that innovate at the intersections of content, commerce, and technology.
