As Gen Z tunes in, broadcasters rethink hiring and content playbooks

India's television industry has a new audience to win and, increasingly, a new kind of employee to win it with.

As the lines between content consumption blur, broadcasters are rethinking whom they hire and how they build programming. Digital fluency, a feel for social media trends and the ability to turn audience data into content are now weighed alongside conventional media experience.

The stakes are high. Though digital is considered the largest segment of India's media and entertainment (M&E) industry, yet television still reaches around 745 million people every week. The challenge is to make that reach relevant to viewers who move between screens and formats.

A skills-first pivot

At JioStar, the shift is being framed as a break from traditional hiring. "We must move beyond traditional hiring models to a skills-first, portfolio-led approach that identifies talent where creativity, product thinking and digital fluency are already thriving," a JioHotstar spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added that while storytelling and creative integrity remain central, the next generation of media professionals must also understand real-time audience behaviour, create for emerging formats and use technology to engage diverse audiences.

For broadcasters, this is about more than refreshing the workforce. Companies want people in content development, programming, marketing and audience engagement who understand how younger viewers discover entertainment and respond to personalities. Influencers and digital creators are also being drawn into programme development and promotion, helping bridge television and social platforms.

"Ten years ago, a showrunner's first question was what the TRP would be. Today it's what the clip will do on Instagram," said a senior executive at a leading broadcast network, who asked not to be named.

The numbers behind the shift

The data explains the urgency. According to a report by WPP Media and The Trade Desk, based on research by Ormax Media, India's connected TV (CTV) audience has tripled to 207 million viewers across 62-65 million households.

Gen Z makes up 49% of that audience and spends close to 3.1 hours a day on the medium, against 2.8 hours for millennials, who account for 38%. The report also found that 83% of CTV viewers seek more information after seeing an advertisement, rising to 89% among premium viewers. These are viewers who engage with brands, not just watch.

The hardware is following. CTV devices in India reached about 40 million units in 2025, up from 30 million in 2024, according to the FICCI-EY Media and Entertainment Report 2026. Digital media crossed ₹1 trillion in revenue for the first time.

The FICCI-EY report describes India as an "AND" market, where television, digital platforms and other forms of consumption coexist instead of one replacing another. For young professionals, that convergence opens roles across linear television, streaming, digital publishing, branded content and creator partnerships.

Policy push for talent

The talent drive also fits a larger ambition. At the CII Big Picture Summit 2026, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting urged India to move beyond being a big content market and build globally competitive M&E companies, with more emphasis on original intellectual property, sustainable business models and international expansion. A CII white paper released at the summit outlined a roadmap to a $100-billion Indian M&E sector.

To build the workforce for that goal, the Ministry, with the Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT), Google and YouTube, has launched a national AI skilling initiative offering 15,000 scholarships across media, entertainment, animation, gaming and digital storytelling. It combines foundational AI learning with a second stage on practical applications in storytelling and creative production.

IICT CEO Vishwas Deoskar said the institute's engagements with broadcasters and creative organisations in South Korea and Japan were meant to understand how mature ecosystems organise talent, technology, production and global distribution. "We look at how mature ecosystems organise talent, technology, production and global distribution, and then ask what can be adapted to the Indian context," he said.

The goal, he added, goes beyond immediate recruitment. "For IICT, the objective is therefore larger than filling today's vacancies. We want to build the talent, technology and research capacity that allows India to create the companies, intellectual property and production capabilities of tomorrow," he said.

Portfolios over pedigrees?

The emphasis on skills could change how broadcasters assess candidates. Portfolios, digital storytelling ability, familiarity with emerging technologies and an understanding of online communities may count for more alongside formal qualifications and newsroom or production experience.

"A 24-year-old who has built a 500,000-subscriber channel from scratch has already run a mini-studio, with audience testing and analytics included. That's a CV line we didn't know how to read earlier," said a talent head at a media company, speaking on condition of anonymity.

For young entrants, the appeal of broadcasting may extend well beyond traditional television roles to audience analytics, creator collaborations, format development and AI-assisted production. For established players, the test will be marrying this digital-first mindset with the editorial judgement, production expertise and institutional experience needed to deliver content at scale.

The JioHotstar spokesperson put it this way: "When we combine the wisdom of experience with the curiosity of youth and anchor both in creativity, integrity and technology, we build organisations that are not only future-ready but also future-defining."

As broadcasters compete for younger audiences across platforms, television's next chapter may depend as much on the people creating and packaging content as on the screens that carry it.