MAM
Chtrbox plants its first global flag in Dubai to crack the Middle East
NATIONAL: Chtrbox has taken its first step outside India, setting up Dubai as its global hub and gateway to the Middle East in a bid to build a cross-border creator economy linking high-growth markets.
The publicly listed creator-economy firm said the move gives it a base to connect creators, brands and platforms across India and the Gulf, turning one-off influencer campaigns into longer-term commercial ecosystems.
The expansion is being led by Chtrbox managing director and CEO and the former country head of Tiktok India Raj Mishra, who built the short-video platform’s creator network from scratch before it was banned. He will steer creator acquisition, partnerships with platforms and brands, and potential investments and M&A in the region.
“The creator economy is moving beyond borders, and the real opportunity lies in connecting markets like India and the Middle East,” Mishra said, calling Dubai a launchpad for talent exchange, partnerships and capital.
Qyou Media CEO and co-founder Curt Marvis, Chtrbox’s parent, said the Middle East push marks a key step in building a global creator platform, pairing Mishra’s scaling experience with Dubai’s role as a gateway to one of the fastest-growing influencer markets.
From its new base, Chtrbox plans to deepen collaboration between Indian and Middle Eastern creators, support brands operating across both regions and play a bigger role in shaping the Gulf’s fast-evolving digital content and influencer-marketing scene.
The company said it would continue to prioritise disciplined growth and governance as it takes its creator-economy model beyond India.
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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.
