IWMBuzz

About IWMBuzz

IWMBuzz is a Mumbai-based entertainment news portal published at iwmbuzz.com and operated by IWM Publishing And Communication Private Limited. Founded in 2017 — it was launched on 21 April 2017 under its earlier name, Indian WikiMedia — the portal covers Bollywood, OTT streaming, television, music, gaming, movies and lifestyle with round-the-clock reporting. It describes itself as a one-stop destination for well-researched entertainment news, views and analysis, show and movie reviews, celebrity interviews and fashion updates, and says its platform reaches around 20 million unique users a month across web, social media and app. IWMBuzz has grown into one of India's most-read entertainment news brands: it was ranked among the top entertainment news publishers in India by Comscore, and it has expanded beyond publishing into large-scale industry events including the IWMBuzz Digital Awards, IndiaWebFest, the TV Summit and the India Gaming Awards. Headquartered in Mumbai with bureaus in Chennai, Kolkata and Delhi, it is a bootstrapped, independent digital media company that has scaled without the backing of a large corporate group.

Founding and founders

IWMBuzz was founded in 2017 by four people: Siddhartha Laik, Franklin Tuscano, Srividya Rajesh and Ashish Banka. Laik serves as founder and editor-in-chief, Tuscano as co-founder and chief technology officer, Rajesh as associate editor and co-founder, and Banka — who led sales — stepped down after five years with the company. The portal began life as Indian WikiMedia before being rebranded as IWMBuzz, a name that kept the IWM initials while giving the brand a more media-like identity. The founding team combined editorial, technology and commercial skills, and the company has described itself as a bootstrapped start-up that grew from a four-member team to more than 70 people with branches in Mumbai and Chennai. That independent, founder-led character has remained central to how IWMBuzz presents itself: an entrepreneurial media company competing against far larger, well-funded rivals for dominance in Indian entertainment publishing.

Ownership and corporate structure

IWMBuzz is owned and operated by IWM Publishing And Communication Private Limited, a Mumbai-headquartered company. Its about page states that the portal is a trusted source of entertainment news owned and operated by this company, with bureaus in Chennai, Kolkata and Delhi supporting the Mumbai headquarters. In December 2022, the company raised an undisclosed investment from media entrepreneur Annurag Batra — the founder of exchange4media and chairman of BW Businessworld — who joined as a partner in the venture. Laik said at the time that the funds would be used for product, content and business expansion, hiring and investment in technology including blockchain and the metaverse, while Batra spoke of reverse mentoring and learning about emerging media technology from the founding team. The deal was advised by Evolution Partners, a Mumbai and Singapore-based advisory firm. The investment marked a milestone for the bootstrapped company, bringing in an experienced media investor while leaving the founders in operational control.

Coverage: Bollywood, television and OTT

IWMBuzz's editorial core is entertainment news across Bollywood, television and the OTT streaming platforms that have reshaped Indian viewing. Its reporters file exclusives on casting, show launches, renewals and cancellations, celebrity news and industry developments, with television — historically the largest entertainment medium in India — receiving particularly deep coverage. The portal's TV reporting tracks daily soaps, reality shows and the actors who move between television, films and streaming, while its OTT coverage follows web series launches, streaming originals and the platforms commissioning them. Bollywood coverage includes film news, reviews, interviews and box office reporting. The site's editorial team is described as reporting relentlessly around the clock, curating trending content 24/7, and its output blends breaking news with analysis, reviews and features. This breadth — spanning the old world of broadcast television and the new world of streaming — lets IWMBuzz serve readers across the full entertainment landscape.

Gaming, music and lifestyle coverage

Beyond films and television, IWMBuzz covers gaming, music and lifestyle, verticals that reflect where young Indian entertainment audiences spend their attention. Its gaming coverage follows the Indian gaming industry — a sector the company knows well enough to run its own India Gaming Awards — while music coverage tracks film and independent music, artists and releases. Lifestyle and fashion updates cover celebrity style, trends and events. The portal has experimented with formats in these areas, including casual gaming experiences on its own site. By covering gaming alongside traditional entertainment, IWMBuzz positioned itself early in a category that many general entertainment portals treated as peripheral, and its events business in gaming reinforces the editorial coverage. The multi-vertical model gives the portal multiple audience entry points and multiple advertising categories, supporting the diversified revenue base of an independent publisher.

Reviews and interviews

IWMBuzz publishes reviews of movies, television shows and web series, supported by a reviewer panel of professionals whose stated objective is to provide authentic, factually accurate and reader-centric reviews. The review operation covers theatrical films, streaming originals and TV programming, giving the portal a critical voice across all three screens. Its interview output is extensive: the company notes that some of the biggest names in Bollywood and the entertainment industry use IWMBuzz as a platform to engage with their fan base, and its YouTube channel — which crossed a million subscribers — carries video interviews alongside news and features. The combination of written reviews and video interviews gives IWMBuzz both critical authority and the celebrity access that drives entertainment traffic. Its editorial policy and review-board structure are published on its about page, part of the transparency posture the company uses to build trust with readers and industry partners alike.

Events: Digital Awards, IndiaWebFest and more

A distinctive part of IWMBuzz's business is its large-scale industry events, which it owns and executes. The portfolio began with the IWMBuzz Digital Awards in 2018, honouring talent in digital entertainment, and IndiaWebFest in 2018, a festival for the web entertainment industry. The TV Summit followed in 2019, convening the television industry, and the India Gaming Awards launched in 2022 for the gaming sector. The company has also organised the Style Awards and the India Kids Summit. These events serve multiple purposes: they generate revenue beyond advertising, deepen the company's relationships with the industries it covers, and reinforce its brand as an insider institution rather than merely an observer. Few digital entertainment portals in India operate events at this scale, and the events business — housed in divisions including IWMBuzz Live — has become a defining feature of the company's identity alongside its publishing.

Business divisions and services

IWMBuzz Media operates through several business divisions beyond its newsroom. These include IWMBuzz Engage, IWMBuzz Live, IWMBuzz Social and IWMBuzz Studios, covering branded content, influencer marketing, events and content production. The diversified structure reflects the company's strategy of building multiple revenue streams rather than depending solely on display advertising — a common vulnerability for independent digital publishers. Branded content and influencer marketing let the company monetise its audience and industry relationships directly, while the studios division produces video content. The company has said it focuses on profitability and has grown year on year, a notable claim in an Indian digital media market where many publishers have struggled to convert traffic into sustainable revenue. This commercial diversification, combined with its events, gives IWMBuzz a business model closer to a media services company than to a pure news portal.

Audience growth and rankings

IWMBuzz's audience growth has been rapid for an independent publisher. In 2020, the website reached 9 million unique viewers, emerging as the fifth most-read website in India in the entertainment category. In 2021, it was ranked among the top three entertainment news-focused publishing houses in India by Comscore, the audience measurement firm. The company's own about page puts its current reach at around 20 million unique users a month across its web, social media and app platforms, with a stated ambition of reaching 50 million-plus audiences across formats. Its YouTube channel crossed a million subscribers, adding video distribution to its text and social reach. These metrics matter because they were achieved without the corporate backing or inherited audiences of rivals owned by large media groups — IWMBuzz's growth has been organic, built on search, social and direct traffic, which the founders attribute to sustained hard work and a data-driven audience strategy.

Hindi expansion and multilingual plans

In 2023, IWMBuzz launched a Hindi-language website, Manoranjan News, extending its entertainment coverage to Hindi readers. The launch acknowledged the reality that much of India's entertainment audience — particularly for television and Bollywood — consumes content in Hindi rather than English. The company has said it plans to expand into all major Indian languages over time, which would make it a multilingual entertainment network rather than an English-only portal. This mirrors the trajectory of larger Indian digital publishers, for whom language expansion has been the main growth lever, and it positions IWMBuzz to compete for the next wave of internet users coming online in Indian languages. The Hindi site covers the same mix of television, Bollywood, OTT and lifestyle content as the English flagship, adapted for its audience.

An independent force in entertainment media

IWMBuzz represents a particular model in Indian digital media: the bootstrapped, founder-led independent publisher that scales through editorial hustle, events and diversified revenue rather than corporate ownership. Founded in 2017 as Indian WikiMedia by Siddhartha Laik, Franklin Tuscano, Srividya Rajesh and Ashish Banka, grown to a 70-plus team across Mumbai and Chennai, backed since 2022 by investor Annurag Batra, and ranked among India's top entertainment publishers by Comscore, the company has established itself as a fixture of the industry it covers. Its combination of news publishing, reviews, video, events and branded services makes it more than a website — it is a small media network. As Indian entertainment continues to fragment across theatrical, television, streaming and gaming, IWMBuzz's multi-vertical, multi-platform approach positions it to follow its audience wherever it goes. The portal continues to publish at iwmbuzz.com, with its Hindi edition at Manoranjan News, covering the entertainment industry it has reported on since 2017.