MAM
Artist Aloud partners with ATKT.in to promoteoriginal contentcreated by collegians
MUMBAI: Artist Aloud, a platform by Hungama that supports and promotes independent music, today announced its partnership with ATKT.in–adigital platform that seeks to promote original content created by college students. Through this strategic partnership, Artist Aloud will encourage young talent and enable them to reach a larger audience, further strengthening its position as the leading platform forindependent content.
As a part of the association, ATKT.in will provide Artist Aloud access to a curated list of original content across an assortment of categories like music, comedy, dance, performance poetry etc. Artist Aloud will, in turn, leverage its reach and help the content get discovered by a wider audience, providing collegian talent a platform that gets them noticed and appreciated. Artist Aloud will also work with ATKT.in to give an impetus to fresh talent at college festivals across campuses in India.
Talking about the new partnership with ATKT.in, SouminiSridhara Paul, Vice President, Artist Aloud, Hungama Digital Media Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. said, “As the leading platform for independent talent, we intend to offer artistes across categories an opportunity to reach a larger audience. The association will allow us to accumulate independent and original content at a collegian level and provide the content creators with opportunities and recognition they deserve. At the same time, we will also be able to offer our audience a wide variety of original content that they are unlikely to discover on any other platform.”
Saurabh Kanwar, Co-founder, ATKT.in said, “ATKT is kicked to bring our legion of campus creators even more opportunities to grow and thrive through Hungama’s platforms. Artist Aloud’s plans to reach out to colleges through ATKT is a validation of the quality and extent of the campus community we have built, and its growing importance in building rich, entertaining original content. With the college festival season getting underway, we are gearing up to a whole new crop of budding artists to showcase to the world, and this partnership will definitely provide another great outlet for these singers, dancers, writers, poets and artists.”
Content sourced from ATKT.in, will be available on all digital properties of Artist Aloud, including web, app, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and blog.
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.
