MAM
RBNL appoints Grey India as creative AoR
MUMBAI: Reliance Broadcast Network Limited (RBNL) has entrusted the creative duties of its entire portfolio across radio and television to Grey India. The agency‘s Mumbai and Delhi offices will be in charge of the account.
Grey Delhi will handle creative duties of 92.7 BIG FM, BIG Magic (UP, MP, Bihar and Jharkhand) and Spark Punjabi (part of Big CBS), while Grey Mumbai will handle Big CBS Prime, Big CBS Love and Big RTL Thrill.
The development comes after the network conducted a multi agency pitch in the capital.
Grey India had entered the fray only for the radio business but was eventually awarded the mandate for the entire RBNL portfolio.
Grey India EVP and national creative director Amit Akali said, “As usual we didn‘t approach the creative through traditional above the line advertising. We tried to find solutions for BIG FM, whether they came through programming, slugs, on-ground activation, events or digital ideas. Most importantly we had great fun working on the pitch and that obviously showed in the work we presented.”
Grey South and South East Asia chief strategy officer Dheeraj Sinha said, “This was a pitch which didn‘t feel like one. It felt like we were partners discussing strategy and responding to creative ideas. The vibe between the teams on both sides has been great and that to my mind is the biggest starting point to a successful partnership. I am fascinated by the role of media in today‘s changing cultural landscape and see a big opportunity for us in this space, especially with the width of offering Reliance Broadcast Network has across radio and television. We look forward to redefining some codes in this space.”
AD Agencies
Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
