MAM
Times OOH chief gets billboard industry throne
MUMBAI:The billboards plastering India’s chaotic streets have found their new overlord. Narayanaswami Shekhar, chief executive of Times OOH, has been crowned chairman of the Indian Outdoor Advertising Association, handing the Times Group executive sway over an industry grappling with digital revolution and regulatory squeeze. Earlier the vice-chairman, he takes over from Jagran Engage COO Pawan Bansal.
Shekhar’s ascent to the top of IOAA puts him at the helm of a lobby group that corrals more than 80 per cent of India’s leading outdoor media barons and boasts 220-plus members scattered from Mumbai’s traffic-choked arteries to Bangalore’s tech corridors. The association’s bread and butter involves fending off municipal crackdowns whilst championing the interests of companies that transform India’s urban jungle into a kaleidoscope of consumer messaging.
The appointment comes as India’s outdoor advertising sector—worth billions of rupees—faces an existential reckoning. Digital screens are rapidly displacing static hoardings, whilst smartphone ubiquity threatens the traditional model of ambushing commuters with roadside pitches. Meanwhile, courts and municipal authorities have launched periodic crusades against “visual pollution,” threatening the very billboards that fund the industry.
Shekhar’s new perch positions him as the industry’s chief evangelist at a pivotal moment. His Times OOH stable operates across India’s major cities, where the company’s digital displays compete for eyeballs against everything from Hindi film posters to political propaganda. The challenge now is ensuring outdoor advertising remains relevant in an increasingly screen-saturated landscape.
For the Times group, Shekhar’s industry chairmanship represents a strategic coup. The media conglomerate can now influence regulations and standards that directly impact its outdoor advertising arm, whilst positioning itself as the sector’s thought leader.
The association’s core mission—protecting and promoting outdoor advertising interests—takes on fresh urgency as Indian cities grapple with beautification drives that often view billboards as urban blight rather than legitimate business infrastructure.
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.
