MAM
ASCI shortens its complaint redressal to 12 days
MUMBAI: Tired of waiting? Well, now you won’t have to. The advertising content self-regulatory body, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) will now deliver its Consumer Complaints Council’s (CCC) decision on a complaint against an objectionable advertisement within a span of on an average of just 12 days from the date the complaint is received.
ASCI’s chairman Partha Rakshit said, “ASCI’s effectiveness and credibility as an advertising self-regulatory organisation has increased several fold with speedier redressal of complaints and high compliance of its CCC’s decisions by advertisers. Regulatory bodies like MIB, DCA, FSSAI and FDA now recognise and support our self-regulation work with the inclusion of the ASCI in the Inter- Ministerial Monitoring Committee formed to review misleading ad content.”
With the public and regulators demanding that ads which are a) misleading or make false claims, b) indecent , c) showing hazardous activities and d) unfair to competition should be promptly removed or modified , ASCI has taken effective action to reduce the complaint processing turnaround time from 45 days two years back to just 12 days on an average currently.
Some of the actions taken by ASCI to achieve this unparalleled turnaround time are:
1) From monthly meetings two years ago, the CCC now meets weekly by having two CCCs instead of one earlier and total number of CCC members moving up from 21 to 28.
2) The turnaround time taken at ASCI to process the complaint and time provided to the advertiser to respond to the complaint has been significantly reduced with the use of email and technology.
3) Intra industry complaints among ASCI members are being resolved in just seven days via Fast Track Complaint (FTC) process which was introduced in 2012. FTC, which handled 30 complaints in 2013-2014 has been very popular among ASCI members who are seeing real time and cost savings by not taking the matter to the courts on intra industry ad content disputes.
4) In the recent past ASCI also introduced ‘Suspension Pending Investigation’ (SPI) by which ASCI can order an extremely objectionable ad to be removed immediately pending investigation and decision of the CCC.
Under its National Advertising Monitoring Service (NAMS), ASCI has also started tracking in print and on TV of all ads against which complaints have been upheld. And results show that over 90 per cent of such “upheld complaints” ads do not reappear or are appropriately modified. ASCI has now started reporting non-compliant upheld ads (i.e. upheld ads which reappear) to regulatory authorities such as the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB), the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI), the Medical Council of India (MCI), the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, and the Food Safety & Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) for taking action as per the law of the land.
The faster complaint turnaround time and improved compliance upheld complaint decisions by ASCI has taken place at the same time when number of complained ads processed by ASCI has increased more than 10 times. In 2011-2012 number ads processed by ASCI were 176 which post the NAMS initiative in 2012-2013 increased to 784 and for April 2013 to February 2014 period (11 months), ASCI has handled complaints against 1833 ads.
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.
