MAM
ACC hopes to seal Asia Cup sponsors by week’s end
MUMBAI: The Asian Cricket Council (ACC), which last Wednesday formalised a deal with Sri Lanka to host the six-nation Asian Cup, has said it hopes to finalise television rights and sponsors by the end of the week.
Sri Lankan media reports have quoted Indian cricket board chief and senior ACC official Jagmohan Dalmiya as saying they were hoping to offer the tournament, due to run from 16 July to 1 August, as a “one-off” to sponsors.
The last Asian Cup was held four years ago. “It is possible and we are looking at how we can get time slots to have the tournament every two years,” Dalmiya told reporters in Colombo after talks last week with Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse. The ACC aims to stage the Asia Cup every two years and accordingly to have longer-term sponsorship deals for future tournaments.
Queried over the weekend as to whether he would be bidding, SET India CEO Kunal Dasgupta said Sony had not been approached but if approached would bid.
According to the information available with indiantelevision.com, Ten Sports as well as ESPN Star Sports would also be bidding for the telecast rights.
A sore point of course would be on the exclusivity part of the deal. With all the problems that “exclusive” rights holder Ten Sports had vis-a-vis national broadcaster Doordarshan awaiting the Supreme court’s verdict, it would be expected that all three bidders would use that as a negotiating ploy with which to bring down the rights costs.
Sources close to the developments say DD has already written to the ACC expressing their interest in the rights. In the light of this the Asia Cup might well prove a test case as to how future tournaments involving India play out on the telecast bidding front.
Interestingly, ESPN Star Sports, on its publicity material issued at the start of the year, had mentioned the Asia Cup as one of the tournaments on its roster where India would be participating.
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.
