MAM
Dentsu Webchutney appoints Gautam Reghunath as Senior VP and Branch Head
MUMBAI: Dentsu Webchutney, the digital agency from Dentsu Aegis Network, has appointed Gautam Reghunath as Senior Vice President and Branch Head, Bangalore. He will lead the 40-member-strong team in Bangalore, overseeing clients including Flipkart, Dailyhunt, Helpchat and Quikr.
Reghunath, formerly Vice President, will report directly to Dentsu Webchutney CEO Sidharth Rao. Reghunath’s key role will be to further build on the Bangalore office’s business success in addition to strengthening the agency’s creative and content production capabilities.
Confirming Reghunath’s new assignment, Rao said, “Under Gautam’s leadership, our South India business continues to evolve at tremendous speed, having grown 200% over last year. From what was a five-member office in early 2015, we are now a 40-people-strong team in Bangalore. It is imperative that we have the strongest possible leadership there to take us to new heights. Gautam has an ambitious vision for the company and is a powerful advocate of putting young talent at the forefront of our business.”
Talking about his new role, Reghunath said, “I am Dentsu Webchutney through and through, and this is a responsibility I am proud to be tasked with. The last one year has been great, being ranked number 1, great new clients and moving into our new space in Bangalore. We have embarked on an ambitious growth path, not just from a business perspective but also as individual creative professionals. The agency is brimming with young creative and leadership talent and it will be a privilege to lead them in our endeavor to continue evolving as a new-age agency – relevant for 2017 and relevant for our clients.”
Reghunath joined Dentsu Webchutney’s Mumbai office in 2010 at a junior servicing position and over the last two years had been tasked with building the agency’s Bangalore operations. He was recently named in Social Samosa’s ‘Top 30 under 30’ list and has previously worked with L&K Saatchi and Saatchi.
Dentsu Webchutney’s clients include Flipkart, Airtel, TI Cycles and Redbull across areas of digital marketing, online video content, website design, mobile marketing and social media. The agency runs with a team of over 200 digital marketing professionals across New Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.
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.
