Finding Indian media's Ted Lassos

Ted Lasso is relentlessly positive. In the eponymous show on Apple TV, the American soccer coach, who knows nothing about English football, is hired to train AFC Richmond, a team in London.

- VANITA KOHLI-KHANDEKAR

In the mayhem and fun that follow over three seasons, his positivity—his belief that people are intrinsically good and that they deserve second chances, combined with hard work—brings Richmond up from the dumps to second position in the Premier League. That is what the Indian media and entertainment (M&E) business needs—relentlessly positive champions who believe. Read that as a large cluster of investors and policymakers—but more on that later.

The World Audio-Visual and Entertainment Summit, or WAVES 2025, held in Mumbai earlier this month, cast a very welcome spotlight on India's creative industries. But the job of building the blocks needed to unleash the potential of this business remains.

argue, rightly, that India is a smaller economy with lower per capita income. But this talk of potential has been around for most of the two decades that I have been covering this business.