MAM
Mindshare appoints John Thangaraj as head – strategy (North)
MUMBAI: Mindshare has appointed John Thangaraj as the head of strategy for the Northern region. In his new role, John will be responsible for the Mindshare strategy product across Delhi clients.
Commenting on what he hopes to achieve at Mindshare John said, “First and foremost, I hope to future proof myself. I have a strong belief in the fact that ‘advertising‘ as is currently practiced in India does not have a shelf life of more than a decade (at the very most).”
Announcing the appointment, leader – strategy (South Asia) Alok Sinha said, “We are glad to welcome John to Mindshare and the extended GroupM family. He’s got category and industry experience, and is a great team leader. I am confident he will be able to lead the strategy division to even greater heights.”
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John will be responsible for the Mindshare strategy product across Delhi clients
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Mindshare leader South Asia Ravi Rao said, “I am pleased to welcome John. He has the combination between being imaginative, strategic and entrepreneurial that our strategy community and clients need. Consumption of information and entertainment is rapidly moving screens and I feel that Mindshare is on the cutting edge of optimizing and leveraging this. ‘Digital‘ has become a buzz word we all love to throw around, and I am looking to Mindshare to help me make the journey from ‘thinking about digital‘ to ‘thinking digitally‘. Perhaps most of all, Mindshare represents a new journey for me- new skills to acquire, new people to meet and new challenges to deal with. Which is what excites me the most about it.”
John has over 12 years of work experience spanning a marketing role at Adidas, a research role at Quantum and as head of strategic planning for Redifffusion Y&R. In his last role John was vice president – strategic planning at Lowe, where he was responsible for the product planning on a cluster of brands that included Wills Lifestyle, Nestle Confectionary, Hindustan Times, Dabur Real, Shine.com, Woodland, Expedia.co.in and OLX.in.
John is extremely proud of the Effie’s and Cannes that he has worked hard to win over the years. These include – Effie 2010 for Hindustan Times‘ ‘It Is Time‘ brand campaign, Effie 2012 for Hindustan Times‘ ‘You Read, They Learn‘ campaign, and Media Lion at Cannes 2013for Best Use of Print for Hindustan Times‘ ‘You Read, They Learn‘.
He is also very proud of the work that he did when he led a global strategic project for LG Korea in 2009 on understanding the super affluent consumers in India.
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.
