MAM
Gaurav Dudeja promoted to executive VP and head of Leo Burnett Orchard
New Delhi: Leo Burnett Orchard on Tuesday promoted Gaurav Dudeja as executive vice president and head of Leo Burnett Orchard and appointed Pravin Sutar as head of creative.
Both Dudeja and Sutar will now lead the national mandate for Leo Burnett Orchard and will report to South Asia Leo Burnett, chief executive officer and chief strategy officer, Dheeraj Sinha, and South Asia Leo Burnett, chief executive officer, and chief creative officer –Rajdeepak Das.
“Gaurav has done a spectacular job of driving growth in the Bangalore office. Now the new-age mandate is to grow the agency at a national level. Pravin joins us with a rich expertise in digital and also holds the advantage of having been a part of the Leo Burnett family. And together we are confident that the duo will take Leo Burnett Orchard to one of India’s foremost new age agencies,” said Sinha.
Dudeja moved to Bangalore from Leo Burnett Delhi as branch head for Leo Burnett Orchard – Bangalore and has been instrumental in managing the large portfolio of businesses and winning several new businesses. “Now with the national mandate, I feel we are poised for bigger, better things. The canvas is now wide open for me & Pravin to take our belief system of building India’s strong new agency and make Leo Burnett Orchard the best version of Leo Burnett. I can’t wait to get going – and learn and have fun along the way,” said Dudeja.
Sutar will be responsible for shaping the creative culture of the agency building it on the tenets of creativity, technology, innovation and storytelling, said the agency.
“I am very excited to be back with the Leo Burnett family. The passion and power of creating great ideas brings me back to the family. Rajdeepak Das, who understands the power of ideas will always keep pushing you for great creative output. Leo Burnett Orchard has a great set of clients who reflect the same passion and drive for excellence as Leo Burnett India. I’m really excited to collaborate with like-minded clients and create some iconic work. Not only digital but more than that,” he said.
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.
