What's inside...

Monday crazy over Trump's film tariff post
Today dawned red hot and blue following a Truth Social post by U.S. President Donald Trump declaring a 100% tariff on "any and all" movies coming to America from "Foreign Lands". In less than 12 hours, more than 2,540 people had responded to the 'let's make movies in America, again' message and millions of hours were spent parsing Trump's intentions, while the entertainment industry, particularly in the U.S., looked like it might be shifting into Defcon-1 mode over what exactly all this might mean to them. The most sensible wondered: "What problem is Trump trying to solve?” And, presuming the tariff actually goes through, how will it work?. ▶ Our take is here

India’s JioStar flags US$10b+ content spend in three years; “India continues to be an exciting pay-TV market and will be for a while,” Shankar says
JioStar is doubling down on content investment, pouring approximately US$3.6 billion into programming this year, with plans to increase spending further in 2026, JioStar Vice Chairman, Uday Shankar, said in India at the weekend during the first World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit (WAVES). In 2024, the company spent INR25,000 crores/US$3 billion on content alone. In 2025, content investment will rise to INR30,000 crores/US$3.6 billion, and the number next year will be over INR32,000-35,000 crores/US$3.8-4.1 billion. ▶ Read the full story here

WAVES – A Grand Spectacle in India; “But you need to go past the glamour,” says Vanita Kohli-Khandekar
Shah Rukh Khan in any room, anywhere in the world, gets attention. When you have Khan welcoming the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi with the biggest names in show business watching, the world sits up and takes notice. If the idea behind World Audio-Visual and Entertainment Summit (WAVES) 2025 was to draw the world’s attention to India’s creative industries, it did. ▶ Read the full story here

Plus more. ▶ Download ContentAsia's 5 May 2025 eNewsletter here