MAM
Prakash Nathan starts his entrepreneurial journey with CineMArkets
Mumbai : Former UTV Disney India operations head and Vice president at UTV Motion Pictures Prakash Nathan is all set to roll out with his new venture CineMArkets Digital Solutions Private Limited. Along with co-founders Girish Kumar and Inkswipe Consulting LLP, Prakash Nathan’s new project is India’s first and very own digital market place for the media and entertainment industry that aims to eradicate the loopholes of the rapidly growing film industry by engaging the content creators, producers and the vendors & service providers under one umbrella. CineMArkets is a dynamic new-age digital platform, which will thrive to engulf the entire media and entertainment industry with its B2B and B2C offerings. As a part of its B2B services, CineMArkets will be a platform, which unifies all stakeholders of the M&E spectrum including content creators and content producers.
The platform will help to transform the current production cycles by bringing in transparency and aid in reducing wastage at multiple stages, eventually making it more profitable for the producer. The process is promised to be as simple as, anyone can visit the portal and help himself with the requirements to create any Media and Entertainment related profile. There is also a revenue model fashioned in a way that will help filmmakers to reduce the waste, instead gain out of it.
Joining hands in this mammoth of an initiative is Inkswipe Consuting LLP, the renowned experts in building such platforms for media, finance and technology, famous for their projects such as Mid-day, Bollywood Hungama, Kolkata Knight Riders, Red chillies and Football Club Pune city.
Describing his just launched brainchild, which is in its Beta stage, Prakash shares, “It’s a market place for Media & Entertainment on the web that will enable sourcing capabilities for producers, line producers and content creators. It will not only facilitate creation, production but also syndication and the entire value chain of film and television content creation. Our mission is to enable seamless media creation, convergence and consumption. We, at CineMArkets, are really excited and sure that this venture will revolutionize the M&E industry.”
With a strong team that consists of media influencers and terrific media managers who have been veterans in the entertainment industry, CineMArkets is sure to ring all the right bells and become the household name for a majority of Indian families.
Digital
Content India 2026 opens with a copro pitch, a spice evangelist and a £10,000 prize for Indian storytelling
Dish TV and C21Media’s three-day summit puts seven ambitious projects before an international jury, and two walk away with serious development money
MUMBAI: India’s content industry gathered in Mumbai this March for Content India 2026, a three-day summit organised by Dish TV in partnership with C21Media, and it wasted no time making a statement. The event opened with a Copro Pitch that put seven scripted and unscripted television concepts before an international panel of judges, and by the end of it, two projects had walked away with £10,000 each in marketing prize money from C21Media to support development and international promotion.
The jury, comprising Frank Spotnitz, Fiona Campbell, Rashmi Bajpai, Bal Samra and Rachel Glaister, evaluated a shortlist that ranged from a dark Mumbai comedy-drama about mental health (Dirty Minds, created by Sundar Aaron) to a Delhi coming-of-age mystery (Djinn Patrol, by Neha Sharma and Kilian Irwin), a techno-thriller about a teenage gaming prodigy (Kanpur X Satori, by Suchita Bhatia), an investigative crime drama blending mythology and modern thriller (The Age of Kali, by Shivani Bhatija), a documentary on India’s spice heritage (The Masala Quest, hosted by Sarina Kamini), a documentary on competitive gaming (Respawn: India’s Esports Revolution, by George Mangala Thomas and Sangram Mawari), and a reality-horror competition merging gaming and immersive fear (Scary Goose, by Samar Iqbal).
The session was hosted by Mayank Shekhar.
The two winners were Djinn Patrol, backed by Miura Kite, formerly of Participant Media and known for Chinatown and Keep Sweet: Pray & Obey, with Jaya Entertainment, producers of Real Kashmir Football Club, also attached; and The Masala Quest, created and hosted by Sarina Kamini, an Indian-Australian cook, author and self-described “spice evangelist.”
The summit also unveiled the Content India Trends Report, whose findings made for bracing reading. Daoud Jackson, senior analyst at OMDIA, set the tone: “By 2030, online video in India will nearly double the revenue of traditional TV, becoming the main driver of growth.” He noted that in 2025, India produced a quarter of all YouTube videos globally, overtaking the United States, while Indians collectively spend 117 years daily on YouTube and 72 years on Instagram. Traditional subscription TV is declining as free TV and connected TV gain ground, forcing broadcasters to innovate. “AI-generated content is just 2 per cent of engagement,” Jackson added, “highlighting the dominance of high-quality human content. The key for Indian media companies is scaling while monetising effectively from day one.”
Hannah Walsh, principal analyst at Ampere Analysis, added hard numbers to the picture. India produced over 24,000 titles in January 2026 alone, with 19,000 available internationally. The country now accounts for 12 per cent of Asia-Pacific content spend, up from 8 per cent in 2021, outpacing both Japan and China. Key exporters include JioStar, Zee Entertainment, Sony India, Amazon and Netflix, delivering over 7,500 Indian-produced titles abroad each year. The top importing markets are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, the United States and the Philippines. Scripted content dominates globally at 88 per cent, with crime dramas and children’s and family titles performing particularly strongly.
Manoj Dobhal, chief executive and executive director of Dish TV India, framed the summit’s ambition squarely. “Stories don’t need translation. They need a platform, discovery, and reach, local or global,” he said. “India produces more movies than any country, our streaming platforms compete globally, and our tech and creators win international awards. Yet fragmentation slows growth. Producers, platforms, and tech move in different lanes. We need shared spaces, collaboration, and an ecosystem where ideas, technology, and people meet. That is why we built Content India.”
The data, the pitches and the prize money all pointed to the same conclusion: India is not waiting for the world to discover its stories. It is building the infrastructure to sell them.
