MAM
Mumbai City FC seals global partnership with Midea
NEW DELHI: Mumbai City FC has inked a new partnership deal with home appliances and air-treatment company Midea.
For the 2020-21 season, Midea will feature on the sleeve of the Club’s first team shirts and will be visibly present on match days and at the Club’s training facility at the Nagoa Village Panchayat Football Ground. Saturday, 21 November will be Mumbai City’s first match with the new kit.
Brando Brandstaeter, head of global brands and communication at Midea group’s International business division said, “Midea is very passionate about its global brand building. With the rise of football in India, partnering with Mumbai City was a logical step to engage even more with our young and passionate Indian consumers. Needless to say, seeing Ranbir Kapoor wearing the Midea branded Mumbai City shirt will help to show our surprisingly friendly product range not only to Mumbai’s citizens, but also to the entire Indian subcontinent.”
Mumbai City FC co- owner Bimal Parekh said, “We are delighted to be partnering with such a fantastic global brand. Midea’s ambition to grow in India has been impressive and we share their passion and commitment to develop and grow. We look forward to a successful season together.”
City Football Group brokered this partnership as part of its consultancy services to the Club.
Midea India Pvt. Ltd VP Pranab Mohanty said the partnership with Mumbai City FC will deepen the positive impact the brand is trying to make in communities across India. “Our association with football is a natural fit as it has a deep-rooted connect with our target audience in India and will help in enhancing Midea’s brand visibility, target audience reach and will create new avenues of collaboration for success.”
Midea has a comprehensive range of residential and light commercial air conditioning solution including VRF, home appliances & small domestic appliances for India market, which includes washing machine, dish washer, refrigerator and water heaters. These products are available on e-commerce platform.
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.
