MAM
Kyoorius Awards sees 40% rise in entries for advertising & digital categories
MUMBAI: The second edition of the Kyoorius Advertising & Digital Awards has received a whopping 1419 entries by Indian agencies and studios. This is a jump of over 40 per cent from last year’s total tally of 988 entries from Advertising & Digital Awards.
Participating agencies include DDB Mudra, Ogilvy & Mather, Madison Group, Grey Worldwide, Contract Advertising, Creativeland Asia, Scarecrow Communication, Linen Advertising, Itsa Brand Solutions, Webchutney, Isobar, Rediffusion Y&R, Ideas@Work and BBH among others.
Kyoorius founder CEO Rajesh Kejriwal said, “This number has been very encouraging and a sign of acceptance by the industry. Kyoorius thanks all the agencies for their support. We look forward to a packed jury session next week as these entries battle it out for Blue and Black Elephants.”
The Kyoorius Awards recognise and award the most outstanding creative work in the Indian visual communications and digital sphere. To this end, Kyoorius, in association with D&AD, has endeavoured to create a neutral platform, complete with a jury composed of some of the top creative minds from around the world.
All jury members for the Advertising & Digital Awards will gather in Mumbai to review, discuss and elect the best over a four-day period. To make the judging process as transparent and open as possible, members from the industry have been invited to see the jury in action at Nehru Centre from 29 April to 1 May. This is amongst the very few open to public jury sessions around the globe.
Visitors can come in and watch the jury debate the entries, checkout some of the best in Indian creativity and attend four FYIdays conducted by the jury members.
The FYIday sessions will be held at the Hall of Knowledge, Nehru Centre, Worli, Mumbai.
29 April – 9 am: Isobar China chief creative officer Tim Doherty.
29 April – 6 pm: Grey London deputy executive creative director Vicki Maguire
1 May – 9 am: D&AD deputy president & Havas Work Club creative partner Andy Sandoz
1 May – 6 pm: Made By Many co-founder Tim Malbon
The Blue Elephant is recognised as a symbol of the very highest creative achievement. Kyoorius Awards have no winning tier structure – no gold, silver or bronze, and it is the jury’s prerogative to award one or multiple Blue Elephants in any one category, whereas none in another, if entries are not up to the mark.
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.
