India's Media and Entertainment Sector Grew 9% to ₹2.78 Lakh Crore in 2025

India's media and entertainment sector grew 9% in 2025 to ₹2.78 lakh crore, Information and Broadcasting Secretary Chanchal Kumar said on 15 October 2026 at the CII Big Picture Summit in Mumbai, according to All India Radio.

Kumar used the two-day summit, the Confederation of Indian Industry's annual meeting for the industry, to push Indian companies to move beyond being a large market for global content and to build firms that own original intellectual property and sell to the world. "Create in India. Own in India. Scale from India. Take it to the world," he said.

What the government wants from the industry

Kumar said India's advantages are a large domestic market, deep storytelling traditions, cultural diversity and a young creative workforce, as media companies worldwide rethink their business models. He listed the priorities as stronger intellectual property, sustainable revenue, disciplined investment and global audiences, and called for a robust anti-piracy framework.

He pointed to government initiatives including the WAVES summit, whose next edition is scheduled for Mumbai in October 2027, the WAVES Bazaar marketplace, India Cine Hub and the Indian Institute of Creative Technologies, which is being set up to build skills in animation, visual effects, gaming, comics and extended reality.

A roadmap to $100 billion

CII released a white paper, The New Economics of Media & Entertainment, setting out a path for the sector to reach $100 billion by the early 2030s, Impressive Times reported. It calls for faster reforms, stronger regional markets and business models that turn audience scale into sustainable, internationally competitive revenue.

Summit chair Gaurav Banerjee, managing director and CEO of Sony Pictures Networks India, said audience size is only a starting point: viewers must see value, advertisers measurable results and investors sustainable returns. Co-chair Gunjan Soni, country managing director of YouTube India, said digital tools and AI can help young creators turn local stories into global businesses, while co-chair Rajan Navani of JetSynthesys said AI is rapidly closing the gap between creative ideas and finished work.

Kumar also opened a WAVES Global Investor and Investee Meet at the summit, which brought together more than 150 investors and startups.