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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Visual: A narrow winding cobbled way in Paris. My voice: “It’s far worse to be poor in a rich country than to be poor in India. To be poor in the spectacular beauty of Paris is like Assamese art cinema trapped in a Wes Anderson scene.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.NEW DELHI: As Alpha, the Alia Bhatt-starrer female spin-off to Yash Raj Films’ Spy Universe, which includes hits like Pathaan, readies for release later this year, trade experts say Bollywood still lags Hollywood in building high-profile, female-led franchise extensions.Unlike the West, where films such as Wonder Woman and Black Widow have proven audience pull for women-led entries within larger cinematic universes, Indian studios have been slower to back big-budget action spectacles anchored by female stars—even when they sit inside established franchises.Malayalam cinema has taken early steps in this direction with Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra, a female superhero film released last year. In Hindi cinema, comparable attempts have largely been limited to mid-budget spin-offs such as Taapsee Pannu’s Naam Shabana, a spin-off to Akshay Kumar’s spy film Baby, Kajol’s horror film Maa, a spin-off to Ajay Devgn’s Shaitaan, alongside Rani Mukerji’s ongoing Mardaani series.“The gap largely comes from how franchises have historically been built in Indian cinema.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.India’s video streaming platforms may still be grappling with monetization challenges, but 2025 has turned into a breakout year for revenues.Video streaming revenues surged 55% in 2025 compared to 2024, nearly tripling from 2023 levels, according to a recent Ficci EY report.The growth reflects a decisive shift in strategy—regional language programming, flexible pricing and hybrid revenue models are helping platforms move beyond the limitations of a subscription-only play in a price-sensitive market like India.Digital advertising grew 26% to reach ₹94,700 crore in 2025, as several advertiser categories shifted ad spends from traditional to digital media, led by FMCG, travel and pharma.Sports and entertainment OTT platforms saw ad revenues rise 34%, backed by higher connected TV rates and volumes, as connected TV grew from 30 million to 40 million weekly active connections, the report said.Video subscription revenues jumped 61% to ₹14,800 crore, with 143 million households paying for 216 million video OTT subscriptions.Streaming service executives and content creators attribute much of this growth to regional language content that has deepened penetration across markets.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Warner Chappell Music (WCM), the global publishing arm of Warner Music Group (WMG), has launched direct operations in India, transitioning from its sub-publishing model to a full-scale, direct-to-market presence. The company said this would allow Indian artists to benefit from international collaborations, a global creative network, rights management infrastructure, and faster, more efficient licensing processes.Jay Mehta, who has served as managing director of Warner Music India since its 2020 launch, will lead the new division.In his expanded role as managing director, recorded music and publishing, India and SAARC at WMG, Mehta will oversee both recorded music and publishing operations across India and neighbouring South Asian markets.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.NEW DELHI: Even as original video and audio content struggle for attention in a crowded digital ecosystem, a new threat is compounding the problem: a surge of low-cost, artificial intelligence (AI)-generated material that is reshaping discovery, monetization and trust across platforms.Often dubbed “AI slop”, this content is mass-produced, repetitive and generic, flooding feeds and pushing higher-quality work out of view. For creators, the immediate hit is visibility: strong content gets buried under volume, making consistent engagement and monetization harder to sustain in a market where revenue is already concentrated among a small fraction of players.One common manifestation of AI-generated content is the proliferation of cover versions of popular songs, often created and distributed at scale using AI tools.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Viewership for films that turn big hits at the box office often doesn’t end with their theatrical run. Appetite for repeat consumption on streaming platforms remains strong — even among those who have already watched the film in cinemas.According to media consulting firm Ormax, 65% of Dhurandhar’s audience on OTT had already watched the film in a theatre, pointing to a high correlation between theatrical and streaming performance of big-ticket Indian films.Industry experts say this could accelerate the trend of OTT platforms spending big bucks only to acquire major commercial hits, leaving small and mid-budget titles out in the cold.According to Ormax, while 21.2 million people watched Dhurandhar only in theatres, about 7.5 million watched it only on OTT.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.NEW DELHI: JioHotstar is doubling down on premium global content in India with the launch of an HBO Max hub, deepening its partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery and bringing some of Hollywood’s biggest franchises under one roof on the streaming platform.The hub will host titles from HBO, Max Originals, Warner Bros.

My Way and joked about being “the two biggest fugitives of India”. After the inevitable backlash, Modi deleted the video and issued a rare apology.A contrite Lalit Modi is, of course, an unexpected spectacle. This is a man who has always courted controversy.

How long are you willing to wait to see Dhurandhar: The Revenge or Project Hail Mary, both released in March, on your favourite streaming platform? Eight weeks or four? That’s the question that filmmakers and theatre owners are grappling with.Stakeholders across India’s film business are even discussing whether a standard gap between a film’s release and its streaming debut would work for movies across languages.Universal Pictures set a precedent by mandating an eight-week theatrical window globally before its films can be streamed. Several theatre owners in south India are demanding that films follow the eight-week window for OTT premieres instead of four weeks now.Studio executives and cinema owners said the bigger issue is how box office performance eventually aids the sale of ancillary rights.

Indian audio and video content, usually considered a draw for domestic audiences and specific diasporic markets, is now finding a home in unusual export destinations.Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Philippines are among the countries where Indian content is popular, according to the Content Trends Report launched recently at the Content India Summit 2026, organized by Dish TV.Experts said this demand is not diaspora-led, unlike more established markets such as the US or the UK. Instead, it appears to be driven by cultural alignment.

Regional storytelling has always had a strong emotional connect with audiences. When combined with the short, mobile-optimised format of micro-dramas, such stories can travel naturally across digital platforms, industry experts say.“We are starting to see early interest in regional language micro-drama storytelling as the format gains visibility in India.

.Singh said the company did “blockbuster business” on the opening match weekend, without giving specific details. “April and May could bring in 25% more revenue at least,” he added.Besides live screenings, several restaurants have made themed menus, beer deals and delivery offers.

JioStar and Pocket FM have recently expanded their AI capabilities, focusing on streamlining story development, production workflows, and localisation, while improving content discovery and retention.Pocket FM said the focus is on building a differentiated, technology-led entertainment ecosystem rooted in strong storytelling and deep consumer insight."Over the past couple of years, we have strengthened our AI-powered recommendation systems to improve content discovery and retention, while also deploying our in-house AI Creator Suite to streamline story development, production workflows, and localisation,” said Prateek Dixit, co-founder - product, tech and AI, Pocket FM.The company has recently strengthened its AI leadership with the appointment of Vasu Sharma as head of AI, whose mandate includes advancing narrative intelligence, long-context reasoning, and scalable localisation capabilities, while ensuring that AI systems remain creator-first and ethically governed, Dixit said.“These investments enable us to accelerate content production, enhance personalisation, optimise cost structures, and scale global IP more efficiently, all while preserving the primacy of human creativity,” Dixit added.For long, Indian media companies focused on content while global players focused on product, data, and technology infrastructure alongside content, said Vijay Subramaniam, founder and group CEO of Collective Artists Network.“Our latest product is a cinema-native production technology platform, that brings together generative systems, LoRA (low rank adaptation)-driven character architecture, controlled shot pipelines, 3D/VFX integration, lip-sync, upscaling, quality control, and delivery into a single production environment,”

Mint in an interview, pointing to how consumer attention is now split across streaming, social, short-form video, and commerce platforms.For Amazon Ads, this shift has transformed a marketplace-focused product into a broader ecosystem spanning shopping, streaming, and third-party publishers—helping it emerge as a third major player after Google and Meta.Amazon stood in the third place in terms of monthly active user base of 325 million in December 2025, following Google in the first position at 501 million and Facebook (Meta) at 447 million, according to a Ficci-EY report released Tuesday.Over the past decade, Amazon Ads has linked advertising more closely to shopping behaviour, a strategy it is now doubling down on amid intensifying competition. On Wednesday, the firm rolled out two agentic AI tools: Creative Agent, to help advertisers easily create professional-quality ads, and Ads Agent, to assist sellers in planning, launching, and optimising campaigns.India’s advertising market continues to grow alongside the media and entertainment sector.

live events sector was valued at over ₹20,800 crore in 2024, reflecting a 15% year-on-year and is expected to double by 2030, according to a report by Deloitte India, released last week. “Events of this scale involve a wide ecosystem: organizers, venues, ticketing platforms, security agencies, local authorities, licensing agencies, partners and multiple vendors for various aspects.

Walt Disney Co.’s expected technology centre in Bengaluru raises questions over up to 9% of information technology (IT) outsourcer Globant S.A.’s revenue, underscoring a troubling shift in the software services sector as large clients bring back-end work in-house.The entertainment giant’s global capability centre (GCC) in Bengaluru will be “an integrated extension of global product and technology teams”, its spokesperson said in an emailed response to Mint. In January, the company behind Mickey Mouse and Peter Pan to Spider-Man reportedly leased 174,000 sq.

The podcast market revenue is estimated to grow from $969 million in 2024 to $4.5 billion by 2030, according to a Deloitte report released on Tuesday, marking India’s move from a niche audio category to a video-first podcast powerhouse.As far as specific genres go, following 2023 and 2024, podcast consumption has rebounded, with renewed interest in favour of select genres, Deloitte’s media and entertainment predictions report showed. The report cites a 2024 consumer study that found 12% of Indians actively engaged with podcasts.“The trend of video podcasts has evolved in the past six months or so, and there is now traction for two-hour plus conversations versus 15-20 minute content pieces earlier.

India’s courts are keeping up with the times in their efforts to curb online piracy of films and television shows by issuing dynamic plus injunctions that are effective even for content that hasn’t been released yet.“We are witnessing a pivotal transition toward the dynamic plus injunction, where the Indian judiciary is providing ex-ante protection for content that hasn't even been expressed yet,” said Yash Vardhan Singh, counsel at Sarvaank Associates. “By moving away from static, URL-based orders, the courts are addressing the intractable reality of digital piracy, ensuring marquee properties like Stranger Things and Friends are protected from the moment of creation.”Experts said recent anti-piracy orders, particularly the dynamic plus injunction, expand the scope of dealing with emerging cyberspace issues.

While most Indian households meticulously track their primary loans and repayment schedules to avoid the fallout of a default, a different category of spending often goes unnoticed. These are the ‘silent EMIs’ — recurring monthly payments that are individually small and scattered. Because they lack the immediate weight of a major loan, they are easy to overlook, yet their cumulative impact on a household's financial health is immensely powerful.Silent EMIs are the monthly payments we commit to without much thought about their impact on our household income.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Mass-market television shows that cater to families and universal audiences are topping OTT viewership charts, proving that streaming has now entered what experts refer to as a period of ‘massification’ with the medium no longer restricted to urban, upmarket audiences. According to media consulting firm Ormax, the list of top 10 most-watched OTT properties in India for the week ended 8 February included titles originally made for TV such as Naagin season seven on JioHotstar (4.5 million views), Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah on YouTube and SonyLIV (3.8 million views) and Pati Brahmachari on the YouTube channel of Dangal TV (3.1 million views).

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. A flurry of strategic deals in India’s film production business is set to swell the pipeline of small and mid-budget movies, even as structural constraints in theatrical releases raise questions about where those films will ultimately play. Multiplexes in major cities are more open to mid-budget and regional films, but tier-two and tier-three markets remain thinly served.