MAM
Amagi launches next-generation managed playout service
MUMBAI: Cloud-based broadcast infrastructure and targeted TV advertising specialist Amagi has launched a new managed playout service designed to simplify video content preparation, management, and delivery for broadcasters by leveraging cloud capabilities.
Utilising the end-to-end cloud-based service for content delivery, playout management, ingest, asset and archival management, quality control, traffic and scheduling, and 24/7 monitoring, broadcasters can dramatically increase workflow efficiency, reduce costs, and gain complete visibility and control over their playout. Amagi will showcase its complete technology offering at IBC2015 in Amsterdam (11 – 15 September).
“Faced with the challenge of delivering more content to an ever growing number of devices, today’s broadcasters need scalable, flexible, and cost-effective playout solutions,” said Amagi co-founder K.A. Srinivasan.
He further added, “Our next-generation cloud-based service transforms the way broadcasters handle video content, enabling them to distribute content more efficiently and cost-effectively on a global scale. Building on our successful CLOUDPORT infrastructure, we are now providing automated, technology-driven services, and a partner marketplace to provide a completely managed playout service to TV networks.”
Amagi’s next-generation playout service enables asset management on the cloud. Broadcasters can store and archive all necessary assets without requiring a large capital investment, as is the case with traditional asset management platforms. With built-in replication, the cloud is disaster-resistant and provides easy collaboration across multiple sites. Amagi’s cloud-based approach to asset management also provides broadcasters the ability to easily alter the content for VOD and OTT multiscreen delivery.
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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.
