MAM
Bhansali’s TV debut ‘Saraswatichandra’ opens with 2.5 TVR on Star Plus
MUMBAI: When Bollywood names get associated with television, the aspiration of the channels airing those shows rises. Be it Aamir Khan’s Satyamev Jayate or Amitabh Bachchan’s Kaun Banega Crorepati or Salman Khan’s Bigg Boss, these Bollywood personalities have time to time proved that their charisma can pull the audience to the television screen as well.
This time it is someone who is not seen on camera but is someone who has been behind many Bollywood blockbusters like Devdas, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and Black. Director-producer Sanjay Leela Bhansali tried out the television medium with ‘Saraswatichandra’ – and the fiction show has worked well on Star Plus.
‘Saraswatichandra’ debuted with 2.5 TVR on 25 February. The average rating of the show in its opening week stood at 2.1 TVR, according to TAM data for the Hindi Speaking Market (C&S 4+) provided by a Hindi GEC.
Helios Media CEO Divya Radhakrishnan believes the debut rating of ‘Saraswatichandra’ is pretty good. “Earlier prime-time was from 8 pm which has now shifted to 7 pm. Considering the Hindi GECs’ standards, it is a big show and the channel has spent a bomb on it. I had thought it would get a better slot on the channel but for a 7.30 pm slot, 2.5 TVR ratings is good and it has picked up pretty well,” she said.
Star Plus VP-marketing Nikhil Madhok said, “We are happy with the way the show has opened up. It is the highest rated debut amongst past few launches of our channel.”
As per TAM data (HSM including 5 new LC1 markets, C&S, 4+) sourced from a channel, Star Plus continued to maintain its leadership position in the genre with the addition of 17 GRPs to notch a total of 265 GRPs. The other shows of the channel like Diya Aur Bati Hum (5.9 TVR), Nach Baliye (2.9 TVR) and Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai (4.4 TVR) have seen rise in eyeballs.
Zee TV climbed to second position with 226 GRPs, despite a loss of five GRPs. The channel’s recently launched kids’ reality show India Ke Best Dramebaz notched a whopping 4.4 TVR in the week ended 2 March.
Following Zee TV is Colors that slipped to third position with a loss of 15 GRPs. The channel had earned 30 GRPs last week as it had aired Akshay Kumar-starrer ‘Khiladi 786’ on 23 January. The fiction shows of the channel recorded marginal difference in their ratings as it closed the week with 220 GRPs.
Sony Entertainment Television lost 18 GRPs to clock 170 GRPs. The channel had gained numbers last week as it had aired the Filmfare Awards. Its recently launched fiction show ‘Khubsoorat’ opened with a TVR of 1 as it averaged 0.9 TVR in the week.
Sab with 138 GRPs (same as last week) went ahead of Life OK in the ninth week of TAM. Life OK ended the week with 132 GRPs (last week 144).
Sahara One with 24 GRPs (last week 24) remained at the bottom of the ladder.
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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.
