MAM
MSN’s ‘Rock Star: INXS’ website attracts fans
MUMBAI: Fans of Mark Burnett Productions’ Rock Star: INXS have made the new reality television show’s official website on MSN a go-to destination, with significant growth in visitors’ activities throughout the interactive site at http://rockstar.msn.com.
To date, MSN Video has streamed 7.1 million clips of the rockers competing for the chance to become the new lead singer of INXS.
Every remaining contestant on Rock Star: INXS has appeared in the top 100 most downloaded tracks on MSN Music, and the contestant performances, along with unaired and behind the scenes footage from the show, are some of the top streamed videos on MSN Video.
The number of people voting for their favorite contestants through rockstar.msn.com is also growing rapidly. Voting on MSN continued its consistent week-over-week growth as the show completed its sixth week. In addition, fans are flocking to MSN Spaces, where each rocker has a personal web log (blog), to get the latest updates from the contestants themselves.
Visits to the contestants’ Spaces have more than doubled since the show’s premiere, which may be because the rockers aren’t keeping very many secrets when it comes to talking about their lives inside the mansion.
Beginning this week, fans who visit http://rockstar.msn.com will also have the chance to vote on the songs they’d like the contestants to sing on an upcoming encore performance show. People are wasting no time making their opinions known, casting hundreds of thousands of votes in the first 24 hours.
“This surge of activity on rockstar.msn.com attests to the outstanding talent of these performers as well as how much enjoyment fans have gained from interacting with contestants and each other through the website. Our goal is to help people find what they love, so we’re thrilled to be involved in exposing the great music and amazing people from Rock Star: INXS to an even broader worldwide audience,” said MSN Marketplaces and Digital Media general manager Mike Conte.
“It was just a few years ago that the only feedback producers would get would be from critics and ratings. Now, thanks to the Internet and specifically our relationship with MSN, very detailed feedback comes across through voting, message boards and blogs, and from the large number of video clips watched and songs downloaded. The music downloads specifically are an incredibly valuable measure of customer feedback, as there is nothing more reliable than when people vote with their pocketbooks,” said Mark Burnett.
Rock Star: INXS, airing on the CBS Television Network and VH1 in the US, debuted in July with a cast of 15 rockers competing to become the new lead singer for multiplatinum band INXS. Votes cast online by visitors to http://rockstar.msn.com help determine which contestant gets dropped from the show each week.
This is the first time that Mark Burnett Productions, the company behind such landmark reality TV series as Survivor and The Apprentice, has used online voting to influence the outcome of a show on a weekly basis.
The website also gives fans unique opportunities to chat, play games and view show-themed content in real time through MSN Messenger, watch exclusive Rock Star: INXS content on MSN Video, purchase contestant performances on MSN Music, buy INXS merchandise through MSN Shopping and learn about the contestants’ personal lives through their MSN Spaces.
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.
