MAM
Salt Brand Solutions promotes Siddhartha Singh as CEO, Arun Divakar as NCD
MUMBAI: Salt Brand Solutions has rejigged its top management. The company has promoted Siddhartha Singh as CEO and Arun Divakar as national creative director (NCD).
Singh is one of the founder members of Salt and till now was executive vice president (EVP). He has almost two decades of experience across agencies like Leo Burnett, Ambience Publicis and Rediffusion – Y&R.
Singh said, “I plan to up the ante on product delivery, ensuring it is above industry standard and pushes the agenda of being best new-age business partners to our clients. This is something we have practiced for the last four years and today feel confident and capable of delivering. In addition, I want to instil brand thinking that cuts through the jargon, brings in simplicity and germinates from a client’s business problem rather than lofty brand ideologies.”
On the other end of the spectrum is Divakar, who will now be responsible for the complete creative portfolio of Salt. “I want to create an environment where people contribute and come up with ideas fearlessly and frequently in a manner that is fun, for I believe that Happy People create Happy Work and that is something that we want to stand for,” he said.
Divakar started his career as an account executive, but quickly realised he was a better art director than the ones he was listening to! He has worked with Flagship and Saatchi & Saatchi in Mumbai, and Classic Partnership, O&M, Y&R and TBWA in the U.A.E, before taking on the role of regional creative director, Pirana which he helped set up in the U.A.E. In 2014 he moved back to India and joined Salt Brand Solutions.
Defining the road ahead, Salt Brand Solutions founder Mahesh Chauhan added, “Divakar has been the proverbial madman of Salt. His talent coupled with his joie de vivre has transformed our work and culture beautifully. Sid, on the other hand, has been a pillar over the past four years of Salt and has seamlessly transitioned into this role. He is widely respected and brings great gravitas to our offering as an organisation.”
“With these elevations, I will now be spending my time driving ideas for our clients. This will involve working seamlessly with both the strategy and creative teams. The end objective being consistently superior work for all our partners as well as properties that we develop for ourselves,” he added.
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.
