MAM
Bodyguard takes Star Gold to new high with a 10 TVR
MUMBAI: Bollywood star Salman Khan proved his power not only on cinema screens but also on TV screens this week.
Khan‘s recent release Bodyguard, which had broken box office collection records in the debut week, has done the same with the world TV premiere on Star Gold. The Salman-Kareena movie clocked a staggering 10 TVR, helping the channel garner an all time high of 226 GRPs (gross rating points) according to TAM data for week ended 12 November, as provided by the channel.
Bodyguard helped the channel in adding 67 GRPs with 124 million viewers tuning in to watch the movie.
This milestone earmarked the biggest television premiere on a Hindi movie channel, ahead of Singham which had clocked an 8.7 TVR on the same channel.
Even among the Hindi general entertainment channels, Bodyguard lagged only behind 3 Idiots, which had clocked a 10.9 TVR on Sony Entertainment. Bodyguard also surged ahead of Khan‘s previous movie Dabangg which had clocked a 9.2 TVR on Colors.
Star Gold GM Hemal Jhaveri said, “We are thrilled with this achievement and the fact that Star Gold is setting new benchmarks for movie channels. We have always aimed at entertaining our viewers with the best and latest blockbusters.”
Jhaveri added that the channel has taken some strong decisions, which has resulted in taking the share of the channel up by almost 50 per cent. “Thankfully, all our decisions have worked in our favour. We have taken the thought leadership and are trying to change the game. It is not easy, but it has never been an easy game. Even if you take out the ratings of Singham and Bodyguard, ourt average ratings are around 150-155 GRPs, which is 50 per cent up,” Jhaveri added.
The channel will also premiere movies like Force, Ra.One and Rockstar, Jhaveri added.
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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.
