MAM
Ashish Bhasin thinks advertising needs to find the balance between optimism and realism
NEW DELHI: A movie buff, a chess lover, and a businessman with great intuitions and understanding, Ashish Bhasin is one of the easiest persons to talk to in the industry. An excellent leader with a future-focused vision, he might now be called the Nostradamus of the advertising world as his prediction of digital becoming the pack leader of marketing pies has been coming true amazingly, though in a scenario that neither him nor any other agency head, for that matter, could have predicted.
The CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network’s APAC operations & chairman for India, Bhasin is currently heading a number of markets, including the origin of the Covid2019 pandemic, China, as they set their sails for the ‘new normal’. Recently, in a virtual fireside chat with Indiantelevision.com founder CEO & editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari, he talked about his experiences in the industry, how he is handling the lockdown and managing his national and international teams, and his thoughts on the economic slowdown we are in. Edited excerpts follow
So, have you been going back to your favourite classics, Gone With The Wind and The Sound Of Music during the lockdown or agency work is keeping you busy?
Well, the days are surely busy and longer for me now. It’s even hard for me to remember if it’s a weekday or a weekend. I start my day around 6:30, that’s when calls with the Australian team happen, and then as most of our senior management is in the UK now, the time stretches till late in the night sometimes. But I am not complaining. I love my work. I find it extremely satisfying that you have something that you're passionate about and you get paid for it.
So yes, I did not have much time to go back to these movies but still, I managed to watch The Sound of Music twice or thrice in these months. You can draw parallels from this film to your own personal and professional life. The whole movie is just about how you manage to keep your focus and enjoy working even in tough times.
What I love about Gone With The Wind is that it takes you to a whole different cultural era and shows human beings at their best. How with changes some hang on to older ideas and how some adapt. Also, it is one of the few movies that are as good as the book. Another such example is the Godfather.
And what about chess?
Chess, yes, I keep playing regularly. It’s something that both I and my son enjoy and there is always a healthy competition going on. And now with digital, I sometimes play it against other competitors too.
You said you love your work. But had you not been in the profession, what career choice would you have made?
I think I would have been a lawyer. But whenever I sit and think about my life and would have done anything differently if given the chance to restart, 9.9 times I feel that I would do exactly the same things that I have done. I would get into the same profession, I would marry the same person, and I would want to spend each day as it has been.
What do you love the most about advertising? What keeps you going?
One is that I am very passionate about my work. I love what I do and I have a sense of ownership. And the second thing is that no two days or I may say that no two hours are the same in the advertising business. Every day is a new challenge.
Also, I am a social person. I love interacting with people. And you get to meet and work with so many interesting and intelligent people in advertising. You find people who dropped out of school and college formal education but are so bright and so smart. So I think just the pure variety of people that you get to work with and the joy and enthusiasm that they bring in that keep me going.
I have always seen it as a great business. I think that’s what most of the industry misses right now. Advertising is not seen as a business; as much as creative talents are valued or planning leaders are valued, business leaders are not valued as much. I agree that advertising is more than just numbers but if you don’t run it as a business, you will get out of it soon.
That’s the only area that confuses me about the profession.
Who have been your role models?
Certainly, Alyaque Padamase, who was my super boss at my first job in Lintas. Then Prem Mehta, who was then the chairman of Lintas. I worked with him closely and learned a lot. Also, Martin Sorrell is one of the finest we have ever seen.
But I think at the end of it, you have to develop your own style, and you can just draw (energies, ideas) from people.
And what is your personal leadership style? Are you an optimist or a realist?
See, I am an optimist in the sense that I see opportunities in adversities. Like right now, I am not seeing any sudden V-shape recovery happening, but I am sure that things will start getting better from here, month-on-month. So, I plan according to the real scenario but my goals are more optimistic.
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.
