MAM
American agency CAA sets foot in India through JV with Kwan
MUMBAI: After IMG and Platinum Rye Entertainment, Los Angeles-based top talent management agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA) has set foot in the Indian market through a joint-venture with Mumbai-based celebrity and sports management agency Kwan Entertainment.
The JV will represent local talent in India and the SAARC nations to create global opportunities for clients in the areas of motion pictures and television (including packaging and sales), music, commercial endorsements, sports consulting, licensing and merchandising, live events, and business development.
CAA‘s India entry was only a matter of time as the agency had set the stage in February by signing Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra. Its Indian roster also includes Golden Globe-nominated director Shekhar Kapur.
The development comes close on the heels of another American agency Platinum Rye Entertainment picking 50 per cent stake in Mahesh Bhupathi-promoted Globosport‘s Brand Advisory Business.
Earlier, New York-based fashion, sports and talent management company IMG Worldwide had entered into a 50/50 joint-venture with India‘s biggest business house Reliance Industries to form IMG Reliance.
The JV will be led by CAA‘s David Taghioff and Caleb Franklin, along with KWAN CEO and MD Anirban Das Blah and COO Indranil Das Blah. The new company, with more than 60 employees, will be based in Mumbai, with offices in Delhi, Bangalore, and Hyderabad.
Anirban Das Blah was formerly with Globosport as its chief executive officer and has been credited with setting up the agency successfully. After quitting Globosport, Anirban started out on his own with KWAN along with Indranil Das Blah.
CAA president Richard Lovett said, “India‘s robust entertainment industry offers CAA KWAN tremendous opportunities for talent across multiple platforms. In a very short period of time, KWAN has intelligently scaled and diversified their business to maximize this thriving marketplace for their clients. KWAN‘s deep network of relationships, local-market knowledge, and collaborative business philosophy make them a powerful partner in furthering CAA‘s existing business in India and providing our clients with more opportunities.”
Blah said, “We believe that the combination of CAA‘s experience, influence, and expertise, with KWAN‘s extensive knowledge of the Indian entertainment industry, will enable us to provide an unmatched spectrum of services for our clients.”
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.
