MAM
#StageBadlega – For Arts, Artists and the Audiences
It was in the early days of the lockdown when a few arts and media organisations came together to face the COVID-19 crisis and its impact of the live arts space. 50 days later, this group has ideated, debated and created stayIN aLIVE – an artist support platform – which will launch its first event on 16th May 2020. Over 60 artists, 24 hours of non-stop content, across multiple platforms!
#StageBadlega has never been truer than today. The ‘stage’ is no longer the wood panelled, sprawling space with clear entry/ exit points and synchronised lighting. It is now a soothing cosy corner of the library or a neatly organised living room dotted with personal photos. New trends are currently being witnessed but what happens once this lockdown is lifted? What is the long-term solution for freelancing artists and the live events industry to become self-sufficient and holistically support itself?
‘StayIN aLIVE’ aims to build this long-term, sustainable platform for artists to nurture, support and strengthen each other in the coming years. Fuelled with a deep love and admiration for the live arts and performance industry, this is a collective of organisations and individuals, hoping to create a movement of awareness and self-sufficiency for the live industry. The aim is to educate, inspire and support artists and at the forefront of that aim and vision is a commitment to cultivate best practices, encourage thought leadership and become a compassionate, yet impactful and sustained, voice of advocacy for government policies related to the live arts industry.
The stayIN aLIVE foundation, a collective between Kommune, Big Bang Music, Tabhrasa, Priyanka Khimani, KWAN, OML, The ArtX Company, Alok Parande, Paytm Insider, Shark & Ink, Tape A Tale, Artist Aadmi, Unmute, Women of India, Gully Gang and Tarsame Mittal Talent Management – promises that 16th May is only the beginning of a long and solid journey of the foundation.
On 16th May, performing artists from various fields will cover a range of topics, such as, ‘How does one deal with a creator’s block’; or ‘Know your digital rights as an artist’; or even jam with fellow artists on your screen! We are talking of artists including Uday Benegal, Naezy, Kubbra Sait, Tanmay Bhat, Shilpa Rao, Nakash Aziz, Dualist Inquiry, Nikhita Gandhi, Suhani Singh, Nikhil D’souza, Tejas Menon who will be sharing their stories, learnings and art, all through the day.
You can connect with stayIN aLIVE on any of these social media platforms:
Facebook – www.facebook.com/stayinaliveorg
Instagram – www.instagram.com/stayinaliveorg
Twitter – www.twitter.com/stayinaliveorg
MAM
AI could unlock billions for India’s $30 billion media industry, says JioStar vice-chairman Uday Shankar
JioStar vice-chairman urges industry to seize once-in-a-generation AI moment to turn India into the world’s creative capital
DELHI: India’s media industry stands at a historic inflection point. Artificial intelligence, long discussed as a technological disruptor, could now become the lever that propels the country from a domestic content giant to a global creative powerhouse.
Delivering the keynote at the IndiaAI Impact Summit, Uday Shankar argued that AI offers India a once-in-a-generation opportunity to lead, not follow, in global media and entertainment.
Shankar credited the prime minister’s vision for centring India’s growth agenda around AI and described the summit as overdue . Drawing on three decades in media, he traced the industry’s transformation from the arrival of the first newsroom computers to the launch of India’s earliest digital platforms, each wave of technology reshaping speed, scale and audience engagement.
The numbers tell a story of staggering growth. In just 25 years, India’s media and entertainment sector has expanded from a few billion dollars to become the world’s fifth-largest market, contributing more than $30bn to the economy. Television households have jumped from about 70m to over 210m, with more than 800m video consumers today.
Yet global influence remains elusive. While South Korea exported Squid Game and Parasite to worldwide acclaim, and Puerto Rico produced the most-streamed artist on the planet, India has struggled to consistently break through beyond its domestic and diaspora audiences .
The constraints are structural. Hollywood studio productions command budgets of $65m to $100m, with tentpoles running as high as $300m. The average Indian film operates on $3m to $5m . A marquee US television episode can cost $20m to $30m; an Indian serial is typically produced for Rs 7 lakh to Rs 10 lakh per episode, roughly $10,000. The capital gap, Shankar argued, has narrowed ambition and limited global competitiveness.
AI, he said, changes the equation by rewiring the three pillars of the industry: content, consumer and commerce.
On content, AI-powered production is collapsing infrastructure costs and accelerating timelines. At JioStar, the company recently produced Mahabharat: Ek Dharmayudh, a 100-episode live-action series delivered three to five times faster than a traditional production pipeline. The implication is stark. The remaining constraint is no longer capital, but imagination.
On consumers, AI enables conversational discovery, interactive storytelling and regionalisation that goes beyond simple dubbing to reflect India’s linguistic texture. On commerce, it unlocks granular segmentation and dynamic pricing, moving beyond the blunt instruments of subscription and advertising that have defined the industry for a century.
The prize is vast. The global media market, currently worth nearly $3trn, is projected to reach $3.5trn by 2029. India’s share remains under 2 per cent. Even a shift to 5 per cent would generate tens of billions of dollars in additional value.
But Shankar cautioned that opportunity does not guarantee outcome. He called for three commitments: self-disruption before external disruption, aggressive skilling to create AI-native creative hybrids, and policy frameworks that accelerate rather than constrain innovation.
Hollywood’s defensive posture towards AI, he suggested, offers India a rare window to design the business models and regulatory frameworks that could set global precedents. The shift in advantage, he argued, favours nations with deep cultural reservoirs and massive audiences.
The question is no longer whether India can lead in the AI age of media, he concluded, but whether it will move fast enough to claim that position.
The stories were always here. Now the technology has caught up.
