MAM
MICA collaborates with Ormax Media for the ‘Media Platforms Analytics’ course
Mumbai: Tapping India’s evolving content business, including India’s OTT growth story, MICA, Ahmedabad, India’s premier B-school for Strategic Marketing and Communications, has launched a specialised course titled ‘Media Platforms Analytics’, in partnership with media insights & analytics firm Ormax Media, who are pioneers in media research, analytics & forecasting in India.
The course will equip students with an understanding of various aspects of media analytics, audience engagement, and how to measure and analyse data to build a successful media platform. The course, conducted by media professionals at Ormax Media, will cover streaming, theatrical and television domains.
MICA president & director Dr Shailendra Raj Mehta said, “India’s media and entertainment industry has grown at an unprecedented rate. To remain ahead of the curve, we at MICA continuously engage with academic advisors and industry stakeholders to identify gaps and translate them into specialized courses. I am confident that this new course will equip our MEM area students with the right knowledge and skill sets to advance the industry’s growth”.
Around 50 second-year students from the Media and Entertainment Management (MEM) specialization will be exposed to a 360-degree approach to planning, applicable to multiple functions like content, marketing, revenue, distribution, engagement, and more, across the three domains mentioned above.
Ormax Media Founder & CEO Shailesh Kapoor said: “It has been our constant endeavour to create more awareness about the role and importance of data and analytics in the Indian Media and Entertainment industry. Our association with MICA is an important step in this direction. We hope to prepare students of this course for their entry into the industry by educating them on the practical application of analytics in the business. Ormax Media’s association with MICA has been a long-standing one, with several alumni being a part of our team. This association will further strengthen this relationship”.
MICA dean Dr Githa Heggde said, “Our pedagogical approach, which combines live industry projects, immersive experiences, and real-world case studies, ensures that MICAns gain the necessary exposure and skills. Our advisory board, comprising industry experts, plays a crucial role in shaping our curriculum to align with industry demands. Moreover, we value the feedback provided by our student mentors post-internships and industry immersions. While MICA’s forte remains in communication and marketing, our industry-driven courses are set to empower our students with robust data science and analytical capabilities.”
Delving deep, Media and Entertainment Management Area at MICA head Prof. Santosh Patra shared, “Analytics is core for any business in today’s modern data-rich world. Though analytics as a subject has always been part of our curriculum, there was a requirement for sectoral and advanced analytics in specialised courses like media, entertainment, and sports business. We realised that students needed to understand the consumer journey, consumption habits, and sectoral growth in these industries. We are glad to partner with Ormax Media to co-design, deliver, and evaluate the course.”
The course will be delivered through case studies, real-world examples, gamification and hands-on learning experiences and help the students look at various data sources and extract insights from large databases to arrive at a platform strategy.
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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.
