MAM
Soccer icon David Beckham join Sky to promote sports through long-term partnership
MUMBAI: Soccer icon David Beckham is joining British pay TV service provider Sky as an ambassador work to support grassroots sport and encourage participation across Britain and Ireland.
During this long-term partnership, Beckham will also feature in ads to promote sport and services offered by Sky.
In his role as a Sky ambassador, he will help to use the power of sport to change lives through the Sky Sports Living for Sport initiative. Now in its tenth year, this free initiative uses the stories and expertise of athlete mentors to inspire young people to learn new skills and improve their lives. Around 30,000 young people a year participate in the programme, which reaches one third of all secondary schools in Britain and has just launched in Ireland. Beckham is managed by Simon Fuller’s XIX Entertainment.
In joining Sky, Beckham teams up with other sporting icons part of the company’s support for British sport and grassroots participation. They include Olympic gold medalist Jessica Ennis CBE, who became an ambassador for Sky Sports last year; Sir David Brailsford, Principal of Team Sky and the architect behind the exceptional performance of British Cycling; and Sir Bradley Wiggins, five times Olympic gold medalist and first ever British winner of the Tour de France.
Beckham said, “Sky have followed my career since I broke into the Manchester United first team. They have done a huge amount to promote and encourage involvement in sport in Britain and I am delighted to be joining them. I have always been passionate about the importance of sport in the lives of young people. It is not all about winning – just getting involved in sport gives you confidence and skills for life. I was lucky to have some amazing role models when I was younger, and I am excited about the opportunity to work with Sky to pass on some of that knowledge to the next generation.”
Sky CEO Jeremy Darroch said, “It is great to welcome David to Sky. Sport is at the heart of what we do and both we and David believe in its power to excite, inspire and change lives. As a hero and inspiration on and off the field, David is a perfect ambassador to help us get more people involved in sport.”
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.
