MAM
Play By The Rules With PPL India
Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL) is India’s largest organization licensing and monetising ‘Public Performance rights’ and ‘Radio Broadcasting rights’ for over 3 million national and international songs across 340+ top-notch music labels like Aditya Music, Anand Audio, Lahiri Music, Muzik 247, Saregama, Sony Music, Speed Records, SVF Music, Times Music, T-Series, Universal Music, Venus to name a few.
Each year the music industry produces hundreds of songs, many of which resonate with the audience and become a part of our cultural ethos. In the last few years, there has been an intense drive to increase compliance from users of copyrighted sound recordings for public performance purposes. Enforcement authorities as well as judiciary have played a major role alongside simplification and rationalization of tariffs by PPL.
The implementation of digital initiatives such as PLUS have speeded up the process of obtaining a license and the response from businesses and event management companies has been heart-warming. India is now at par with some of the most developed markets in terms of copyright compliance and is seeing this revenue go back into the development of artists and repertoire. In its endeavour to further increase compliance, PPL is consistently taking efforts to identify defaulters and ensuring that they are dealt with, under the relevant provisions of law.
Commenting on the same, Rajat Kakar, MD & CEO, PPL India said, “I am delighted that there has been a huge surge in establishments taking on performance licenses for both background music and events. I am thankful to the users of sound recordings for coming forward to obtain licenses in large numbers. Also, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the enforcement teams across the country for ensuring that the rightful earnings of owners of sound recording are being protected.
The technology initiatives and professional work processes, at PPL, are ensuring that right owners are being fairly compensated. India is being seen as a shining example of copyright compliance and ethical practices by international agencies that seek to protect intellectual property rights. I urge the few misguided non-compliant users to come forward to obtain a license for usage of sound recordings for public performance and play music by the rules.”
Under the Copyright Act 1957, each and every establishment or individual must obtain consent from the copyright owners of the music before they intend to play it publicly. PPL by virtue of controlling over 3 million songs, makes this process a simplified one by offering a single window license for usage of all its members’ works.
PPL’s dominant share of International, Hindi and Regional music is available to users for Public Performance and Radio Broadcast.
PPL encourages all users to procure the requisite License to avoid legal proceedings against them. As any offence under Section 51 & 63 of the Copyright Act of 1957, is an infringement of PPL’s copyright and punishable by law.
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.
