MAM
Dentsu Aegis Network adds Dentsu India CCO portfolio to Soumitra Karnik
NEW DELHI: Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN), the global media & marketing communications conglomerate, has now entrusted Soumitra Karnik, currently chief creative officer (CCO) at Dentsu Impact and mcgarrybowen India, with the additional charge of CCO, Dentsu India. He will assume this role for Dentsu India, the full-service agency headquartered in Bangalore, with immediate effect, and will report into DAN India creative chairman Agnello Dias.
Under the expanded mandate, Karnik will lead Dentsu India’s creative output nationally and will be responsible for maintaining and amplifying a robust client-agency relationship for the agency across its offices in Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai and Kochi.
Agnello (Aggi) said, “I have known Soumitra for many years now and he is the sort of guy you could go to war with. Nothing fazes him. I have seen him take on the most absurd challenges with a happy fascination at having found a new puzzle to solve. He has that rarest of attributes in a creative person – his creative stamina, and I am sure he will go on to do more than justice to his new extended role.”
Karnik said, “Keeping the big-sounding designations aside, I am the same hungry and relentless creative person that I have always been. Lately, I find a lot of people from the industry complain about the prevalent diminishing standards and mediocrity everywhere; and while I am certainly not going to deny this, I also believe that the only way out of it is to roll up our sleeves, put our heads down, and get to work. That is exactly what we did when we were giving shape to Dentsu Impact a few years back. We won a lot of good clients and did a lot of good work which won us a battery of awards nationally and internationally. I am fortunate to have worked very closely with some great clients and some amazingly talented team members. Without the support of both, consistently producing good work is just not possible. With the mandate and the freedom to build a strong creative culture at Dentsu India, what I now have is an incredibly exciting challenge and an opportunity – all rolled into one.”
DAN India chairperson creative line of business Narayan Devanathan said, “Soumitra and I have been partners in crime for close to nine years now, and I couldn’t be happier to have him now also lead the creative mandate at Dentsu India. Over the years, Dentsu India has grown to be one of the most stable partners any client could ask for. With this solid foundation, I’m sure Soumitra will help the agency scale new heights with a creativity-first approach.”
Soumitra joined the network in 2012, playing a key role in the resurgence of the group’s creative reputation. Prior to that, he was an ECD at JWT. In over 11 years spent there, he worked on a variety of clients, including Pepsi, Airtel, Nestle and Hero Honda. Karnik has also worked at Lowe and Percept. Among his notable campaigns are ‘Pepsi Yeh Hai Youngistaan Meri Jaan’, Slice Aamsutra, ‘Yaari Ki Gaadi’ for Hero Honda Splendour NXG, and the ‘What Makes Us Click’ Campaign for Canon, to name a few.
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.
