MAM
Industry leaders share excitement about return of Goafest 2020
MUMBAI: Indian advertising and marketing folks don’t need an excuse to hit the sun-kissed sands of Goa’s beaches. A whole lot of them are hence likely to head to the holiday paradise come 2 April 2020 courtesy the Ad Club and the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) which are putting together the sixteenth edition of Goafest.
Ad veteran Nakul Chopra has been re-appointed as chairperson of the jamboree with Jaideep Gandhi being named as the co-chair of Goafest 2020 organising committee. Well, the ever so ebullient IPG Media Brands CEO and treasurer The Ad Club Shashi Sinha, has the onerous responsibility of chairing the Awards Governing Council (AGC) of the celebrated ABBY awards 2020 once again.
“Year-on-year, it is our endeavor to make Goafest the most sought after gathering of the Indian advertising & media industry both in terms of knowledge sharing and raising the bar for creativity. Goafest has been consistently putting India on the global map of a creative powerhouse and as we put together this edition as well, our endeavour is to bring the best of speakers, workshops and experiences to boost the next-gen of advertisers,” says AAAI president Ashish Bhasin.” “Nakul as an industry veteran has been adeptly handling Goafest and his vision for the industry is sure to translate into an engaging and inclusive festival experience for all."
Adds Chopra: “Goafest is the only premiere festival that is a holistic representation of the Indian advertising and media industry. Our focus continues to remain on driving up the ante of scale, inclusivity knowledge sharing. The 2020 edition of Goafest will also focus on creating an experience that is immersive, transformational and continues to contribute to enrich the ecosystem..”
Explains The Advertising Club president Partho Dasgupta: “The purpose of Goafest is to bring forth a platform that encourages India’s A&M industry to engage, innovate and share cohesively. The three days of Goafest sees the entire media and advertising fraternity breaking the barriers of organisation and come together to share common achievements, failures and learnings. ABBYs have always been recognized as a gold standard in creative awards and with Shashi at the helm, we are sure that the awards will continue to follow the highest standards of quality and due diligence.”
“With the ABBY Awards, every year we try to widen the horizon and be more inclusive. Our belief has been to let works of excellence do the talking and this year too we will continue to look for campaigns that inspire change, make a difference and become an inspiration for the industry,” highlights Sinha explaining his vision for the metal competition this year.
The ABBY AGC includes: Shashi Sinha, Ashish Bhasin, Nakul Chopra, Jaya Advertising Director Jaideep Gandhi, Publicis CEO India Anupriya Acharya, Havas Group India group CEO Rana Barua, Aditya Birla Capital Limited chief marketing officer Ajay Kakar, McCann Worldgroup vice chairman and MD Partha Sinha, MullenLowe Lintas Group CEO Virat Tandon Group, Percept Limited director Ajay Chandwani, and House of Cheer founder and media Veteran Raj Nayak.
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.
