MAM
Car owners in Delhi, Kolkata listening to more radio: IMRB survey
NEW DELHI: It is less than a month since several FM radio channels launched in the capital city but some of them have staked their claims to ruling the airwaves.
The Times of India group’s Entertainment Network (India) Limited’s Radio Mirchi 98.3 FM, which was launched in New Delhi on 28 April, claims radio seems to have caught the fancy of Dilliwallahs – according to a recent research conducted by IMRB. The IMRB Car Track survey shows that almost 70 per cent of the cars had their radio sets switched on. Surprisingly, the same results (70 per cent) hold good even for the city of Kolkata, where Radio Mirchi 98.3 FM launched two weeks ago.
According to the survey conducted earlier this week, Radio Mirchi commands a share of 43 per cent of in-car listenership in Delhi – one and a half times that of the nearest competitor – and 52 per cent in Kolkata – more than all the radio stations put together, says a medianet release.
The medianet release claims that field personnel from IMRB stationed themselves at 10 of Delhi (like Panchsheel Club and Bhogal) and Kolkata’s (like Gariahat and Park Street) busiest traffic junctions, during morning and evening rush hours, and randomly chose private cars. The team selected a car; and checked the radio dial to determine the radio station tuned to.
Reacting to the survey findings, Radio Mirchi sources said that it was encouraging to see that almost 70 per cent of the in-car population was tuning in after only three weeks of launch of the private FM radio channels in the cities.
IMRB International country manager Hemant Mehta was quoted as saying: “The car track survey is a fairly accurate indicator of radio listenership. We have done this survey for over one year in Mumbai. The important feature of the methodology is that the findings are based on actually verifying the ‘dial’in the car, rather than what is claimed by the car ‘occupant’.”
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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.
