MAM
Brett Lee bats for Tourism Australia
MUMBAI: Former Australian cricket player Brett Lee will help push Australian tourism in India as a part of the ‘Friends of Australia‘ advocacy program by Tourism Australia.
As part of his first stint as a Friend of Australia, Lee welcomed more than 70 of India‘s leading travel agents in Melbourne with a personalised tour of the Melbourne Cricket Ground and dinner at the cricketing stadium to share his career highlights. The agents participated in a six?day India Mega Familiarisation and Workshop (IMFW) being hosted in Australia until 6 September.
The programme was jointly hosted by Tourism Australia and Tourism Victoria and it was the second time this business event was held in Australia. India represents a major visitor market for Australia and Victoria in particular. The participants will also visit a number of other Australian states as part of the familiarisation visit.
Lee who recently retired from international cricket is a popular figure in Indian sports and culture, during both his cricketing career representing Australia and playing for Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League (IPL), in addition to his music pursuits and growing his Mewsic Foundation in India.
Tourism Australia managing director Andrew McEvoy said, “India is a market that continues to deliver steady growth for Australian tourism and we are delighted to have someone of Brett Lee‘s calibre to further raise the profile of Australia in India and to help us best align to our year 2020 target to secure higher visitor growth from this rising market.”
India is currently Australia‘s 10th largest tourism market, worth Australian $0.8 billion in 2011 and delivering 152,000 visitors in the last financial year to 30 June 2012.
McEvoy said, “India has great long term potential for Australian tourism and we continue to support its development via our recently launched India Strategic 2020 Plan to grow the Indian visitor market to Australia. Brett Lee has a huge profile in India, but also possesses deep credibility by demonstrating a high level of engagement and embracing Indian culture, as a result of his stellar cricketing career and ambassadorial and charity work in country. We are thrilled to have his support to tell more Indians why they should visit Australia for their next long haul holiday.”
Lee said, “Having travelled to India some 60 plus times, I now look forward, as a Friend of Australia ambassador, to encouraging Indians to visit this wonderful country and experience all that Australia has to offer.”
The travel agents and tour operators participating in the familiarisation visit are among the top sellers of Australian holidays in Mumbai, Delhi and other major secondary cities in India. During their time in Australia they have already experienced Sydney and the Hunter Region (NSW), the Gold Coast (Queensland), Perth and Fremantle (Western Australia), and will now disperse throughout Victoria.
Following the Melbourne leg of their visit, where they are meeting with Australian tourism product suppliers, a number of agents will also visit The Whitsundays, Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef (Queensland), Adelaide, the Barossa Valley and Kangaroo Island (South Australia).
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.
