MAM
FremantleMedia to make shows available for net download
MUMBAI: Format creator and distributor FremantleMedia and Arts Alliance Media have signed a deal for users to download episodes to their PCs and certain portable devices and view them either on a rental basis or keep them on their hard drives to watch whenever they want.
Fremantlemedia has granted rights to Arts Alliance Media-which provides digital film distribution services in Europe – to make up to 200 hours of classic comedy available to UK broadband internet users. Programming will be sourced from the FremantleMedia and talkbackThames catalogues and will include hit programmes such as Men Behaving Badly, Goodnight Sweetheart and Tommy Cooper.
The content will be available later this year via a dedicated website as well as via Arts Alliance Media’s download partners which currently includes download and DVD rental site, Lovefilm and AOL, which has over 2.2 million members in the UK, of which more than 1.3 million are broadband members. Additional partners for download distribution will be announced over the coming months.
FremantleMedia Enterprises CEO David Ellender, says, “This deal represents a central part of our new media strategy which involves us engaging with the consumer across a number of new platforms that are being opened up at present. Arts Alliance Media is the leading download company for the studios and has a reputation and track record second to none in this field. We are very excited about establishing a relationship with them as they move into the TV sector.”
Arts Alliance Media president Mark Livingstone, said, “We are pleased to be the first to partner with FremantleMedia in a deal which further establishes Arts Alliance Media’s reputation as the premier content provider for download services. FremantleMedia’s content of classic TV comedy adds to our extensive library of feature titles which we look forward to rolling out to our existing and future partners.”
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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.
