MAM
Toyota account to move to Dentsu’s new India arm from 1 October
MUMBAI: The “television commercial break” behind him, former Zee Telefilms broadcast CEO Sandeep Goyal is ready for action.
Government clearance has been applied for (on 8 August), and it’s time to get the business rolling. New joint venture ad firm Dentsu Communications Pvt Ltd, in which Goyal is a 26 per cent stakeholder, gets its first big account – Toyota Kirloskar – activated from 1 October.
The JV that Dentsu Inc is setting up with the former Zee and before that Rediffusion DY&R CEO entails Japan’s largest advertising agency holding a 74 per cent stake in the new entity. Dentsu Communications will have an initial paid-up capital of $1 million (a little under Rs 46 million). Since Dentsu Inc already holds 20 per cent stake in Rediffusion-Dentsu Young & Rubicam (DY&R), it had to obtain a no objection certificate (NoC) from the latter for floating a separate company in the country.
Informed sources have told indiantelevision.com that the Toyota-Kirloskar account, which is reportedly worth around Rs 300 million and expected to grow as Toyota focuses on the A segment, will move to Dentsu as of 1 October. Reports say the account shift could spell curtains for Orchard Advertising, through which Dentsu was servicing the Toyota account.
Goyal has already set up an office in Bangalore with Ruchira Raina in charge, the sources confirmed. When contacted, Goyal would provide no details as to the company’s plans, saying it was too early to announce anything as he was still in the process of setting up the agency.
Getting the agency fully functional will reportedly take another three months. Information available with indiantelevision.com indicates that Starcom India’s Bangalore office, which manages Toyota’s media buying and planning, has already been informed that from 1 January 2004, the account would shift to Dentsu.
The new JV will initially target almost all Japanese brands present in India including Toyota, Honda, Suzuki, Mitsubishi, Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, Toshiba, Canon, Epson, Fujifilm, Kawasaki, Yamaha and Daikin – all global clients of Dentsu. The total worth of all the accounts in Dentsu’s immediate sphere of attack are worth an estimated Rs 1300 million, according to sources. Sony, Fuji and Hitachi are the other brands that are currently with Starcom.
It will be interesting to see what happens to accounts such as Canon, currently with Rediff DY&R. Even if they do not shift out in the immediate term, advertising circles believe it is only a matter of time before a parting of ways comes about. This is because internationally, the DY&R relationship weakened post WPP acquisition of Y&R, which pushed Dentsu to strengthen its investments in the Publicis Groupe. Dentsu is the single largest shareholders in Publicis, as also in Leo Burnett. By virtue of its investments in these agencies, Dentsu also owns significant stake indirectly in Starcom.
The benchmark that Dentsu Communications will have to aim for will likely be China. Dentsu’s Chinese billings were a massive a $278 million in 2002, having more than quintupled in just four years. It is now China’s third-largest advertising firm.
“India might not necessarily be the next China, but it’s a big market,” Dentsu Inc’s executive vice president Fumio Oshima has been quoted recently in a Reuters report as saying.
MAM
Netflix Q1 2026 earnings ad growth and content spending in focus
Streaming giant set to report results on Thursday after walking away from Warner Bros Discovery takeover.
MUMBAI: Netflix is about to hit play on its latest quarterly numbers and investors are hoping the plot thickens in all the right ways. The streaming leader reports its first-quarter 2026 earnings on Thursday, marking its first set of results since it walked away from a proposed takeover of Warner Bros Discovery. That failed bid would have handed Netflix prized franchises such as Game of Thrones and Friends on a silver platter, sparing the costly effort of building its own library. Instead, the company now faces tougher competition from a potential $110 billion Warner Bros-Paramount Skydance combination, should that deal close.
Analysts polled by LSEG expect Netflix to post a 15.5 per cent rise in revenue to $12.18 billion, with advertising contributing $634 million. The company raised US prices in March, a move some believe could prompt an upward revision to its full-year revenue forecast and nudge more subscribers towards the faster-growing ad-supported tier.
Netflix shares have climbed 13 per cent so far this year and are up roughly 26 per cent since the company stepped back from the $72 billion Warner Bros deal. With the merger drama behind it, the spotlight now shifts to how aggressively Netflix can expand its advertising business and live programming.
“We’re kind of entering another phase for the ad business, where they are becoming one of the largest scaled global advertising platforms,” said Gabelli Funds portfolio manager John Belton, which holds Netflix shares.
During the quarter, Netflix beefed up its live slate with a BTS concert streamed from Seoul that drew 18.4 million viewers worldwide and the 2026 World Baseball Classic, which became the most-streamed baseball game globally. Investors are watching for signals that the company will lean further into sports and other live events to fuel ad revenue growth.
The results come at a pivotal moment. Having dodged what could have been a debt-heavy acquisition, Netflix has the freedom and the cash to double down on its core strengths: original content spending and building a robust, scaled advertising platform. Whether the numbers deliver a binge-worthy performance or leave viewers wanting more, one thing is clear: the streaming wars are far from over, and Netflix is determined to keep its crown.
Expect plenty of drama when the figures drop after all, in the world of streaming, every quarter is its own cliffhanger.
