MAM
Rhodri Talfan Davies to be appointed BBC interim director general, replacing Tim Davie
LONDON: Tim Davie is finally switching off the lights. The BBC’s beleaguered director-general will depart on 2 April, nearly five months after announcing his resignation in the wake of a Panorama editing scandal that has left the corporation facing a multi-billion-dollar defamation lawsuit from Donald Trump himself.
The American president is decidedly unamused about the way the flagship current affairs programme spliced together two sections of his 6 January 2021 speech. Who can blame him? Though the BBC might argue it was simply tightening up his rambling rhetoric, Trump’s lawyers see it rather differently and are preparing to make the corporation pay handsomely for the privilege.
Davie, who became the BBC’s seventeenth director-general in 2020, has spent much of his tenure firefighting. From impartiality rows to editorial mishaps, the man has had more crises than a Greek finance minister. His departure, announced in an internal memo last November, came as the Trump furore reached fever pitch.
Stepping into the breach will be Rhodri Talfan Davies, currently director of nations and the corporation’s AI tsar. He’ll take the reins on 3 April as interim director-general whilst the hunt for a permanent replacement grinds on. Talfan Davies will join the board as an executive director from 1 Februaryto smooth the transition though whether anything about this mess can truly be described as “smooth” remains debatable.
The incoming director-general, whoever draws the short straw, will inherit a poisoned chalice of Shakespearean proportions. Beyond the Trump lawsuit, they’ll have to negotiate the BBC’s next royal charter (the current one expires in 2027) and wrangle with the government over the future of the licence fee. Meanwhile, Rhuanedd Richards will continue as interim nations director, presumably keeping the seat warm until the musical chairs finally stop.
BBC chairman Samir Shah praised Davie’s “extraordinary contribution” and Talfan Davies’s “passionate commitment to public service broadcasting.” Translation: one chap is leaving under a cloud, and another is bravely stepping into the firing line.
For Davie, April can’t come soon enough. For his successor, it may well come too soon. The Beeb on its part, as ever, soldiers on.
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.
