MAM
Allied Media ups BalaKrishna as COO
MUMBAI: Allied Media, the media buying and planning arm of Percept Ltd, has elevated PM BalaKrishna to the position of chief operating officer.
BalaKrishna, who was vice president, will take charge of the entire operations of the current Rs 10 billion franchise that Allied media manages.
Balakrishna had joined Allied Media along with Shripad Kulkarni – the CEO of the company since its inception in April 2007. Soon, Balakrishna was promoted as the VP of the company.
According to the company, Balakrishna has played a key role in building a formidable team to service all the group clients of Percept, including North and South Regions.
He has been an intrinsic force for the company in forging business relationships with a varied mix of clients such as Panasonic, Toyota, Canon, Hirco, Nahar Group and Sahara Group.
In his 20 years of experience, Balakrishna has worked in sales and marketing with media houses like Times of India – Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd and Zee Network.
Kulkarni said, “BalaKrishna has been the key resource of Allied Media since its inception and has played a pivotal role in the super success story of the company. As we grow at a breakneck speed, we strongly believe in nurturing and growing in-house talent. We believe in building leaders from within.”
BalaKrishna added: “I am excited with the challenging opportunity to drive the company to newer heights. We have established a strong presence in India in a short span of time and our association with Point Logic – The world leader in marcom planning tools and analytics – we are now ready to take on the best in the industry.”
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.
