MAM
BBC World ends 2004 by scanning news and events
MUMBAI: BBC World will feature a special programme named World Review 2004 that will review and analyse the main events of 2004. The show will also focus on the issues that will shape the international news agenda in the coming year.
BBC World will showcase the show over next fortnight in 10 parts. According to a company release, World Review 2004 covers politics, democracy, religion and global conflict, as reported through the BBC’s network of 250 correspondents.
The show will broadcast stories that were prepared by the 250 correspondents which includes an undercover investigation by Alistair Leithead on the true state of life in Zimbabwe; an assessment of President George W. Bush’s election victory and the effect it will have on the United States in the next four years; and a study of the state of democratic freedom in Russia since the tragic siege at a school in Beslan, informs the official communiqué.
In addition, the BBC’s business unit has produced four programmes that look at the international pension’s crisis like Paying For Old Age, the battle between Europe’s low-cost airlines; Battle For The Skies, corporate crime in the United States; How The Mighty Fall, and the struggling economies of France and Germany;The Poor Men Of Europe.
A year-end edition of the talk show Hardtalk sees the host Tim Sebastian revisiting his interviews with the master of Cold War spy thrillers John le Carre, who explained his grave concerns about the conflict in Iraq, and the man who planned and carried out the invasion, General Tommy Franks. There is Hugh Thompson, the helicopter pilot who rescued Vietnamese women and children before they were murdered by American soldiers in the Mai Lai massacre of 1968 hero from the My Lai massacre, and Khalid Mishaal, one of the leaders of the Palestinian organisation Hamas, who seeks to justify suicide bombers, informs the media release.
The Sport Today will have five programmes reviewing the major sporting events of the year in chronological order, with presenters Rob Bonnet, Adnan Nawaz, Mike Bushell, Mary Rhodes and Chris Hollins. It was the year of the Olympic Games in Athens, a surprise Greek victory in the European football championships in Portugal, Roger Federer’s domination of men’s tennis and the Boston Red Sox winning baseball’s World Series after 86 years of trying. There’s also a sixth edition with David Brenner that predicts some of the stories that will make the headlines in 2005.
Akhtar Khan and the Fast Track travel team revisit reports they’ve filed from countries as diverse as Bosnia, Finland, Syria and Vietnam. They went bungee jumping in Queenstown, New Zealand, the world’s extreme sports capital, where tourists outnumber residents by 100 to one, and gauged the effect that fluctuating oil prices were having on fares for air passengers. They’re taken on a tour of New York by a talking car, and mark the gradual demise of one of London’s best-known visitor attractions, the Routemaster bus.
BBC World’s technology show Click Online, presented by Stephen Cole, has a two-part retrospective including interviews with the scientists who created a coat that makes its wearer invisible, and asks whether watching television on mobile phones will soon be a widespread practice. On the 150th anniversary of the Met Office in Britain, there’s a look at how computers are making the weather easier to forecast, and an explanation of the ways in which governments around the world are working to make the Internet safer for its users.
And in the film based Talking Movies, presenter Tom Brook lists his top 10 releases from a year that saw success for Chinese films such as Hero and House Of Flying Daggers, and for sequels including Spider-Man 2 and The Bourne Supremacy. However many big budget films didn’t do as well as expected. Examples are Alexander ,Sky Captain and The Polar Express,. However animated movies such as Shrek 2 and The Incredibles were big box office hits. Music, historical epics and religion were also popular themes, as Talking Movies explains in its review of the year.
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.
