MUMBAI: India’s media and entertainment industry is growing faster than the economy, reshaping global benchmarks and is on course to blow past Rs 3 trillion by 2027.
That was the headline message from Kevin Vaz, chairman of the FICCI Media and Entertainment Committee and chief executive of entertainment at JioStar, who delivered the opening keynote at the launch of the FICCI-EY Media and Entertainment Report 2026 in Mumbai on Monday.
He did not waste much time on caveats.
The industry hit Rs 2.78 trillion in 2025, outpacing GDP per capita growth and surpassing even last year’s bullish forecasts.
Vaz described the year in three words: scale, convergence, transformation.
The numbers, he suggested, were only half the story.
The other half was how that growth was happening.
Digital has become the industry’s largest segment, driven by advertising, subscriptions and commerce.
But Vaz was quick to puncture the familiar narrative of digital killing everything else.
India, he argued, is not an either-or market.
It is an AND market.
Connected TV is surging.
Linear television, mobile, films and print are all still expanding.
AVGC, the animation, visual effects, gaming and comics sector, is emerging as a serious growth engine, opening new storytelling formats and new global revenue streams.
Nothing, he said, is replacing anything.
Everything is reinforcing everything else.
Nowhere is that more vivid than in sport.
In an on-demand world where audiences can watch anything, anytime, Indians still show up live.
“Sports don’t fragment audiences,” Vaz said.
“They unite them, just on different screens.” The ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026 made the point emphatically.....
