MAM
Ad world remains positive on eighth day of demonetisation despite inconvenience
MUMBAI: India entered the eighth day of limited demonetisation in the backdrop of rejection of a petition by the Supreme Court, and still a majority of the nation is without access to cash.
Unending queues are thronging the banks, with most of the ATMs either dysfunctional or running out of cash at the speed of light. Local shops are struggling to function with the newly-introduced Rs 2000 note amid this cash flow issue.
The unorganised sector which mostly operates in cash has suffered the most.
To ease the situation, the government has allowed use of high-value notes for some purposes — at milk booths, petrol stations and railway stations, up to 24 November.
Indiantelevision.com takes a look at how the advertising world is coping with the cash crunch, whether any advertising campaign has felt the impact or any ad film shoots have been stalled.
“We are not facing any difficulty as most of our work is with retainers. Moreover, our transaction is in white, nothing in black and grey, and mostly kept transparent by using cheques for transactions.
The production houses may face problems during shoots but, so far, we have managed the show, and haven’t heard of an issue,” said Leo Burnett south Asia CEO Saurabh Verma.
“Of course we will all get impacted by it eventually if the economy slows down in the next few months but we need to wait and watch,” Verma added.
Similarly, The Glitch co-founder Rohit Raj agrees that there is no immediate impact on the industry. “For campaigns, which are pre-scheduled, money comes in cycles. Therefore, there is always some buffer. During shoots too, we mostly operate through cheques, Raj explained. The Glitch has an in-house studio and production unit for its video content. Luckily, for them, there was only one shoot that fell during this period, and hence the agency didn’t have to go through much hassle.
Not just the big and well known agencies, but small and medium-sized players in the market have also been cashless in their operations, as explained by corporate films and TV promos video director Avi Sandhu.
“We mostly operate electronically because that is how agencies pay us.
Even the spot boy is paid through NEFT transfer. It is to ensure that we have a transaction trail. Sometimes, for props etc., we might need cash. In that case we either go with the available denomination or the company calls in the bank requesting to liquidate the required cash for daily use,” he shared adding that most banks are separately looking at corporate accounts.
About the models who work on fee per shoot basis, Sandhu admitted that the industry is banking on the usual cycle of paying them after 40 to 45 days when the agencies distribute the payments that comes from the client, by when the situation will normalise.
When it comes to advertising, the most unorganised sector is perhaps out of home. Asked if there is any challenge in operating, Milestone Brandcom’s Nabendu Bhattacharya explained that there is no issue from the agency’s end. “Our business is mostly cashless. We wire the money when we buy the spaces. But, agencies and vendors working on the selling side might have a different story.”
The story remained mostly the same, except for some unique variations.
“We mostly operate cashless as the clients prefer so. The only issue is — we are unable to deposit the cash which is already with us because of the serpentine queues. Because it is all billed money, I am not worried about it, but banking is a hassle these few days,” shared Pioneer Publicity director Sunil Vasudeva.
Another out-of-home vendor, who wasn’t happy with how things were hampering the business, hesitated to share his plight in public in fear of repercussions from the government.
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.
