MAM
The Trade Desk Launches in India, appoints Tejinder Gill as General Manager
New Delhi: Global advertising technology firm, The Trade Desk has launched operations in India, and appointed Tejinder Gill as the company’s India general manager.
Gill will lead the company’s business and growth strategy in India, helping Indian brands and publishers unleash the full potential of the open internet where Indian consumers are increasingly spending their time.
Rapid digitization of the media industry has provided a paradigm shift in the way Indians consume content online. In particular, content consumption on the open internet has exploded in the last 18 months. In a statement released on Wednesday, the company said it aims to help India’s digital marketers capture these fast-growing opportunities. “With The Trade Desk’s industry-leading data-driven capabilities, marketers can access a marketplace of premium advertising inventory across a wide range of websites, apps, podcasts and streaming OTT platforms,” it said.
The omnichannel platform plans to enable marketers to reach relevant audiences across different devices (including computers, mobile devices, tablets and connected TV), and engage with them meaningfully along their entire digital journey.
“Digital is the fastest-growing advertising segment in India and, as a result, marketers in India are seeking more trust and transparency as they shift more campaign budgets there,” says The Trade Desk, India, general manager, Tejinder Gill. “While Indian consumers are spending 70 percent of their time on the open internet, almost 80 percent of India’s digital ad revenue still goes to the big tech platforms, which sit outside the open internet. The Trade Desk is here to bring the much needed data-driven decision making and transparency to India’s digital advertising ecosystem, offering marketers a credible choice where they can tap into the immense opportunities of the open internet.”
Dentsu, Media-South Asia, Divya Karani, said, “Digital duopoly has existed for quite a while in India. However, we are now seeing brands increase their spends on other platforms on the open internet. Seeing how programmatic advertising has grown multi-fold in the past few years, The Trade Desk has arrived in India at the right time, when opportunities on the open internet are expected to grow much faster than traditional digital channels.”
According to Publicis Media Services CEO Tanmay Mohanty, winning in programmatic media is important in the platform world. “Digital marketers are being exposed to the power of data, and they want to embrace it more fully across advertising channels. At Publicis, we invest ahead in training our talent. And so our talent who are certified by The Trade Desk can help marketers drive real-time campaigns with qualified reach and accuracy while transparency is an effort in the same direction,” 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.
