looking for love online during lockdown was a multibillion—dollar business, so why are so many of us swiping out of the apps? is it that the price of love is just becoming too steep? i'll be asking one woman who's been in touch with 6,000 americans and noticed a big change in the way we use the sites. and i'll be heading out to an in—person dating event to talk to the brave souls searching for a partner in real life. plus, later in the programme, it's a country of 1.5 billion people, and he has millions on his site looking for love. i'll be chatting to the boss of matrimony.com, india's biggest digital dating group. so how is love blossoming across what is becoming one of the most important dating markets in the world?

wherever you'rejoining me from around the world, once again a big hello and a warm welcome to the show. now, during the global lockdown, the flame of love burnt brightly online. with billions of us stuck at home, the only way singles could mingle was to fire up those dating apps. dating sites like hinge, bumble and tinder became billion—dollar businesses as sofa surfing for mr or ms right took off. but, lately, it seems that we might be falling out of love with the apps. match group is the largest dating company in the world. it owns the big digital brands like hinge, tinder, 0kcupid, and match.com, but it recently said it was cutting 6% of its workforce

after the amount of people paying for services on its biggest site, tinder, dropped for the seventh quarter in a row. so that's almost two years of fewer people paying for the service. but it's not all bad news — there was some encouraging growth at stablemate hinge, and whilst fewer people are paying for tinder, the ones which are left are paying more. the price of love on tinder can be steep, especially in a cost—of—living crisis. whilst it won't cost you anything to sign up for the service, once on there, a premium account will cost you around $8 a month. and, just at the end of last year, tinder unveiled an invite—only ultra premium service for — get this — nearly $500 a month, or almost $6,000 a year. meanwhile, at rival bumble, you canjoin forfree,

but a premium profile will cost you around $20 for a week of swiping. but if you sign up for longer, they'll charge you less per week. but the cost of living is hitting younger people. that's according to the pew research centre, which surveyed more than 6,000 people in the united states. one of the authors of that massive research project isjoining me now. colleen mcclain, huge welcome to the programme. i wonder if i can start off by asking you, of the thousands of people you interviewed, what kind of difference did you find between experiences that men and women have of online dating? so we do see differences overall when we ask people about their experience of online dating. and to get into some of the details, we explored some of the more negative experiences people might encounter while online dating. and we do see that younger

women, women under 50, stand out for experiencing these...some of these things. so, for example, they were more likely than other groups to say they'd received unwanted sexually explicit messages or images, for example. another place we see differences is when we asked people who'd been on dating apps more recently how they feel about the number of messages they receive. so we've heard a lot of discussion about online daters�* emotions, from burn—out to elation, everything in between. and what we find when we ask online daters themselves is that there's a gender disconnect here. so women are more likely to say, in the past year, they've felt overwhelmed by how many messages they get on dating sites and apps. and men, on the other hand, are more likely to say they feel insecure about the same thing. some are concerned about safety. they think dating sites and apps should implement background checks — they've had these negative experiences. but others are saying that their experiences have been positive. so when we talk about stressors, particularly regarding young women, you did say, you know,

it's—it's burn—out, feeling overwhelmed with some of the messages that they're getting. that definitely changes as you go up the age group, does it? we do see differences by age, yes. and, in particular, when we looked at some of the negative experiences people had had, we saw that women under 50 were those who stood out. and so these younger women who'd been on dating sites and apps were more likely than their older counterparts and than men to say, for example, they received unwanted content, they've received unwanted continued contact from people after they've said they didn't want to be contacted, they've been threatened, things like that. and so, yes, we do see younger women in particular standing out. now, why do you think some sites are more popular than others? if you do pay, and if you do go for that extra service in the research for this, i was

overwhelmed by the sheer number of sites offering different services, working to help different groups within the community among the population, ages, professionalism, but what is it do you think that makes a site more popular than the rest? a, site more popular than the rest? �* . , ., ., rest? a great question, all the work speaks — rest? a great question, all the work speaks to _ rest? a great question, all the work speaks to the _ rest? a great question, all the work speaks to the range - rest? a great question, all the work speaks to the range of i work speaks to the range of places people are going to meet people for many different reasons, and so most of our questions in the survey asked about the online dating experience as a whole. we ask people to step back and ask them about their time on dating sites and apps, what was it like and what things they experienced and if they met their partner. we dive into specific sites and apps and asked about a series of places people might go. he found among the least we are asked about tender was the most popular

among online dating users under 30, but there was a vast range of places people go to online dates, as you mentioned, and our survey did not delve into the reasons why someone picked one over the other but we certainly knowjust looking at the online dating landscape that different apps and platforms offer different things. we see in our work, for example that about one third of online dating users have paid for and apps or sites or future on it, so paying for something extra, and platforms differ in the various feature they offer to stop if you do pay. iii the various feature they offer to stop if you do pay.- to stop if you do pay. if you do -a to stop if you do pay. if you do pay and _ to stop if you do pay. if you do pay and you _ to stop if you do pay. if you do pay and you go - to stop if you do pay. if you do pay and you go for that l do pay and you go for that extra service. with a much bigger price tag, did users find that it was worth it? so we did see some differences in how people rated their experiences. and so we found that about six in ten online daters who said they'd paid for a site

or an app or a feature at some point said their experiences had been positive. and among those who haven't paid, that share is a bit smaller, so about half say their experiences have been positive. one other thing i'll mention is that... ..different platforms may appeal to different people. and, overall, we asked people about their reasons for being on dating sites and apps. and it's important to note that while, you know, many people consider... well, one measure of success of online dating is finding a partner. people are on dating sites for other reasons as well, ranging from meeting a partner to having casual dates, making friends, having casual sex. and so while our survey didn't delve into how different platforms played into that, there is a real diversity in people's experiences and in what they're looking for. we are in a huge cost—of—living crisis at the moment. i'm just wondering if cost proved to be quite an important feature for younger people signing up.

the main differences we saw here were actually by income level as well as by gender. and so we did see that users with higher incomes, relatively speaking, were more likely to have paid for an app or a feature on it. we also saw that men were more likely than women to say that they had paid for an app or a feature on that dating app. and what about scams? that's a growing issue, isn't it, for anything online? just how concerned were people about that? we did ask people about their experiences here, and about half of those who've used a dating app at some point say they think they've encountered somebody who's trying to scam them. and there are some differences within this as well. and so men under 50 are particularly likely to say this. 63% of men under 50 who've tried online dating say they think somebody has tried to scam them. colleen mcclain, thank you very much indeed.

we are in the air of aia but when these started we learned very quickly about al gore them this and it is the algorithm that helps to match and pair of people, did you find that in the research people felt confident the algorithm got it right? confident the algorithm got it riuht? ~ confident the algorithm got it riaht?~ . confident the algorithm got it riaht? . confident the algorithm got it riuht? , ., , right? we asked some questions reauardin right? we asked some questions regarding this — right? we asked some questions regarding this stop _ right? we asked some questions regarding this stop one - right? we asked some questions regarding this stop one was - regarding this stop one was sort of a broader question, do you think algorithms can predict whether people will fall in love are not with you mark overall, most people are sceptical or unsure, so 35% of americans say no. algorithms cannot predict love. 43% said they don't know, but we see about one in five people saying that the algorithms can addicts with their two people can fall in love or will fall in love. in terms of success, i think that's what you were alluding to is well, did these

algorithms work? i want to underscore a month there are lots of different definitions of success, like i mentioned, people are looking for different things as they are unnamed dating, but, of course, one definition of of successes is did you meet a partner? 0ur is did you meet a partner? our study finds that among partnered us adults, one in ten c they met their spouse or partner on it it insight or app. this is higher among some groups, so for example, one in five partnered adults under 38 seat they met their partner online dating. colleen mcclain, thank you very much indeed. thank you. it was wonderful to speak with you. so what's it like on the ground? i wanted to hear from people in real life, so i went along to an in—person dating event right here in london to hear what's really going on with those looking for love. james birrell is the founder of a brand—new dating company, setting up events for people to connect — in person — at different locations

across london. tonight, it's a dating and board game event. the company is just six months old, but already these nights are sold out. so, james, why do you think that people are essentially turning away from the online, virtual dating scene? we've noticed a huge demand for in—person events over the last few months, which is primarily due to people being a little bit tired of online dating through apps, etc, a lot of app fatigue, people really wanting to move back to an in—person experience, make more authentic connections through meeting people face to face. we noticed that slightly more women attend the events than male, as far as we're concerned. and what that tells us is that women see these events as a safe space and a comfortable, controlled environment in which to meet new people. something that maybe, if you meet through an app or online, at a venue wherever you live, that that just isn't the case. so what we can do is we can set

up a much more comfortable, relaxed, safe and controlled environment where people can meet more organically. now, james, this is a generation that is burdened with historic levels of cost of living. so i'm just wondering why you'd open up such a specific business at this point in 202a. people now, with costs of living, they're more conscious about how they're spending. but when they do so, they want an experience to be able to talk about. and so bringing people together, in person, to enjoy a couple of hours at an event, making friends, making new connections, which is so important in a transient city like london, i think that's something that's really valuable to young people. these events tend to attract typically more women than men. so, asjames prepares for his daters, i wanted to find out why those younger women are coming to these in—person events. it's my first time going to, like, a real—life thing,

and i'm still kind of using the apps as well. but i think the thing with it is it starts to feel, like, a bit tiring, like, lots of conversations and, like, ifeel like it's quite hard to read people from conversations. the fact that, like, every day, you've got to check the messages and maybe you're talking to a few different people to see if you think you'll get on, and then that's quite time—consuming if you've got, like, work and, like, friends and stuff as well. and then sort of, like, having the same conversations overand overagain, right? like, "who are you? what do you do?" that being a bit of a time and energy thing. so i think it's better to, like, just meet people in real life and then see how you feel. well, online, - you have a wider pool. but then it really depends on the fun or, like, - who you actually meet online. and for the real—life event, you also need to go - through the time to find it, book it and you show up. this is a game thing, date night. _ so, for me, ijust kind of come to play a game and whether or| not i meet a person... it'd be great. but if not, it's ok, yeah. and that is obviously muchl

better than online chatting. earlier in the programme we saw how people in america and the uk are fuelling weary with dating online after its massive growth during lockdown. but what is it like in india? my next best company holds the record for matching the most number of couples in a country of 1.5 billion people. he's the boss of matrimony.com, which owns brands such as bharatmatrimony and a host of others, and they're actually the market leader across one of the biggest markets in the world. mr murugaveljanakiraman, a huge welcome to the programme. now, let me start with this — how different is the dating scene in india to the west? 0k, first of all, thank you for the opportunity. let me explain about the culture in india, how people get married. in india, there is no concept of dating, though today

youngsters do some bit of dating, but culturally it is not the case. how people get married, either could be arranged by parents, or people — singles — may fall in love with the intention of getting married. that's the reason that tinder or these kind of casual relationship sites are not so popular or not so successful in india. so when you were...when you were setting up the company, you've pointed out already, you know, culturally, it was very much the idea of having your marriage arranged. it was senior members of the family who—who guided couples together. was this a challenge? is it still a challenge? you know, do families, senior, older members of the family, who are highly respected, do they feel disrespected by apps, by online sites like yours? two decades ago, it was the case, you know, people used a matrimony site as a last resort, and you're able to gain the credibility of all sectors of people in india because, over two decades, literally — literally — millions

of people got married through our service, including my own marriage. i'm happily married to, you know, my wife, deepa. we met through bharatmatrimony. com. like, today, i come across so many people... because today the online matrimony sites have become the major source of finding a life partner. today it's become the most credible, trusted, preferred platform. so it's no more of the last resort to find a life partner. in fact, it has become the primary source of finding a life partner. huge congratulations forfinding your partner on matrimony. i just want to pick up on the issue of building credibility, building trust. i mean, this is so, so very, very important. how do you deal with the challenge of scamming? oh, yeah, that's a good question. so i want to be very clear, we do a lot of things. first of all, the platform is meant for matrimony service. so anyone even mentioning in the profile for friendship, dating — we don't even allow those profiles to be part of our platform. that's point number one.

we do a lot of verification, from phone verifications... er, we do a lot of other forms of verification, though those are optional. like, phone is mandatory verification. we have the id verification, we have a self—verification, we have education verification. we do all forms of verification. we also do the ai analytic to see any scammers trying to contact beyond certain preferences. so we use the ai significantly. plus also get member feedback — anyone reports, saying that, "this person doesn't seem to be intending to marry," we do take actions. plus we also do a lot of education videos. we have a video with one of the popular actors in india called vidya balan. we have the video to educate users that there are some frauds who may take place through online matrimonial sites. and because the nature of the platform is meant for marriage, we do encounter only limited number of the frauds. but, however, we do take this thing very seriously. now, india is hugely diverse. i'm talking socially, classes, of course. how important is it that

you reach and engage... ..with the different sites that you have to offer, that you do actually engage with the different class strata in india? i believe you have a dating site, an elite dating site, but also a blue collar dating site. how well does that work? india is culturally... it's very diverse. there are so many what are called communities or castes, and people... a majority of people prefer to marry within those communities or castes. you'd be surprised to know we are running almost at 200+ matrimony sites. it's based on languages, like, say, gujarati matrimony or, say, punjabi matrimony, tamil matrimony, bharat matrimony. based on religions — we have a christian matrimony, muslim matrimony. like that. we also based on various caste, like agarwal matrimony, patel matrimony. we do have special sites as well — divorcee matrimony, doctors matrimony. see, for the communities of like—minded people. when people prefer to marry like—minded people, we consider the community.

so we run the 200+ matrimony sites based on these religion, languages, communities and specific sites. as you rightly said, we also look at socioeconomic status. we have special offerings for rich and affluent for india. it's called elite matrimony. we launched almost 15 years ago. which set a minimum of, say, us$1.5 million to be part of the elite matrimony. so... by the way, incidentally, we have an elite matrimony experience center in various airports, airports in india. we almost have ten elite matrimony experience centers in the airports because airports are the best place to reach for the elites. also, we havejodi. it's an exclusive matchmaking service for a non—degree holder. that is people who've studied 10th standard or +2, which is below college. we have an exclusive matrimony service for those segments of the population which are sort of bottom of the pyramid — an exclusive matrimony service for those people as well in multiple indian languages, where the service is kept free for female.

so, as a brand, we have multiple brands. sorry, as an organisation, we have multiple brands based on those — religion, language, communities, plus top of the pyramid, which is on the socioeconomic status, for the bottom of the pyramid. so we have segmented that entire market based on these criterias — could be on cultural criteria or socioeconomic criteria — plus we do have retail outlets as well. we have 150 retail outlets that parents can walk into the retail outlets and avail the matchmaking service. i think it sounds like you're covering all bases, particularly when it comes to the different sections of society. i'd really love to know what you're doing for the lgbt community. oh, yeah, iforgot to mention we have rainbowluv, an exclusive dating or matchmaking service for lgbt communities. it's called rainbowluv.com. l—u—v, yeah. is that a reflection of how attitudes to the lgbt community are changing in india, or has it always been more open than perhaps

we would think in the west? it was not the case before the supreme court of india has, er... uh, has decriminalised. it was legally not allowed for lgbt community to come together. and after the decriminalisation by the supreme court, we launched an exclusive matchmaking service for lgbt community. so though its marriage is not still legalised, but living together is not something... it's not criminal, yeah. now we all know that heritage, a person's heritage, is hugely important. and you talked about happiness and oneness and wholeness and how important that is to a happy life. the diaspora is hugely, hugely important for many people, both those in the diaspora and businesses as well. and so let's just take the market in the united states. are you able to engage with those in the us who want to retain their indian heritage? thank you for asking this

question because for us, beyond india, us, uk, north america are important markets, considering the growing population of indian american in the us. we launched an exclusive brand called, er...meraluv — m—e—r—a—l—u—v — an exclusive dating app, because, outside of india, the indians who were born and brought up in the us, they want to date because that's the culture that they were brought up. but they want to get married to someone who has indian origin. so we launched an exclusive dating app for that market. so, like that, we always look at servicing the indian diaspora not only in india, across the world. so meraluv... looking at the opportunity of the growing population of indian american, we launched this brand. going forward, we may take the brand to other markets as well, maybe uk and other markets as well. covid and lockdown was huge when it came to dating apps and dating websites right around the globe. how much...? to what extent did it

impact your businesses? so, during the covid time, we saw our traffic and registration almost went up by 40%, 50%. but the post of covid, the whole thing has come down. so we have kind of come back to the earlier levels of registration, like pre—covid levels. so there was a spike, but it has become now regular or it has become normalised. just looking ahead to five years, obviously entrepreneurs, business leaders are always looking ahead, they're always looking at trends, setting the trends — disruptors, essentially. let's just go ahead, five years' time. i mean, we've seen here in the uk and the us, for example, there's this move from online to real life. in five years' time, where do you see the indian dating market? i see that the modern dating market, the online matrimony market or serious relationship market will continue to grow because, today, we have reached almost around 15% of the target audience. i see that, probably five years down the line,

it can probably be in the range of maybe 25%, because we are also taking some steps like launching a serious relationship service, like meraluv.com. so we do expect we could probably take the percentage from 15% to 28% in the next five years. but it's also coming as an innovative strategy to reach more people. mr murugaveljanakiraman, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on talking business. thank you. thank you for the opportunity. nice talking to you. well, that's it for this week. i really hope you enjoyed the show. and don't forget that you can keep up to date with all our global economy stories on the bbc news website, or, of course, the smartphone app. you can also follow me on x. thank you for watching and i'll see you soon. cheerio. hello there. it looks like it's going to get warmer next week, particularly for southeastern parts of the uk. quite cool though for these areas in particular

on saturday, where we had the cloud and rain. a weather front has taken the wet weather away, but there's more weather systems to come in from the atlantic to bring some rain in from the west, together with some stronger winds on sunday. it's quite cool air still, so temperatures are going to be on the low side to start with. some early sunshine some early sunshine in the east, it does cloud over in the east, it does cloud over though from the west, though from the west, with some rain coming with some rain coming in mainly for the northern in mainly for the northern half of the uk. half of the uk. briefly some rain in wales briefly some rain in wales and the southwest before it cheers up in the afternoon. not much rain heading into the midlands, it should stay dry towards the southeast. the winds will pick up a bit. not as strong as they were a few days ago, but gusts of a0 miles an hour — wales, the midlands and northern england. and the southwest before it and whilst it's going to be a bit warmer than it was on saturday in the southeast with some sunshine, further north those temperatures really will struggle under the rain and quite a poor day here. late in the day that rain will start to ease off a bit, and then we look out into the atlantic, more weather systems to arrive much later on monday. so on the whole, monday looks a better day. we want to see early showers in the southeast and still some cloud left for northern england,

northern ireland and scotland with one or two spots of rain. but many places will be dry, there'll be some spells of sunshine, probably not quite as windy, i think, on monday either. change here on wednesday. and so it's going to feel a bit warmer. temperatures will be a bit higher. nothing startling, but still could make the low 20s across eastern parts of england. and then these weather systems will bring some rain into the northwest overnight. we'll keep some wet weather going into tuesday, but the rain isn't going to move very far. it's getting blocked by that large area of high pressure, and that will allow the temperatures to rise ahead of the weather front, which is bringing the rain. there will be some rain, though, on tuesday for scotland, and northern ireland — could be a bit heavy over the hills as well. slowly, that rain will push its way over the irish sea into northern and western parts of england and wales. but ahead of that, the midlands towards the southeast, dry, some sunshine. here, it's starting to warm up with temperatures back into the mid 20s, but where we've got cloud and rain further north and west, temperatures will be pegged at 18—20 degrees.

and those numbers won't

and a greek—owned oil tanker is on fire and adrift in the red sea, as houthis in yemen release a video claiming to show their forces attacking the vessel. hello, i'm carl nasman. we start in germany, where authorities say they've arrested a man suspected of carrying out a mass stabbing in the city of solingen on friday evening, which left three people dead and eight injured. german media reports say the suspect handed himself in to a police patrol. this brings the total number of people detained in connection with the attack to three, including a 15—year—old on suspicion of having been in contact with the perpetrator before the attack. the islamic state group have claimed responsibility for the attack, but have provided no evidence. and earlier on saturday, police were seen raiding a property — usually a home for refugees — in the city of solingen.