MAM
Govt ad spend on print falls by 54 % in last 3 years
New Delhi: The government’s expenditure on print advertisements has dropped by almost 54 per cent in the last three years.
According to the latest data presented in the Parliament, the government had spent Rs 429.55 cr in print advertisements in 2018-19, which decreased to Rs 295.05 cr in 2019-20, and further plummeted down to Rs 197.49 cr during the pandemic in 2020-21. The data was shared by the union minister for information and broadcasting Anurag Thakur during the ongoing monsoon session of the Parliament.
The ad-expenditure on electronic and digital media has also also recorded a significant drop over the last three years, said Thakur in a written response to a question raised by BJD MP Sasmit Patra. According to Thakur, the Centre spent Rs 514.29 crore on TV ads in 2018-19. In 2019-20, the allocation for ad expenditure on electronic media platforms was slashed to Rs 316.99 crore, which further came down to Rs 167.98 crore in 2020-21.
All these expenditures refer to expenses incurred by the Bureau of Outreach and Communications (BOC), which acts as an advisory body to the government on its media strategy, and undertakes information, education, and communication (IEC) campaigns of the government through its empanelled media platforms as per the policy guidelines.
The plummeting ad spends by the government come at a time when the print industry is struggling to survive the pandemic’s severe blow. The print media thrives on advertisement expenditure of industries including e-commerce, automobiles, and finance, which were also impacted by the lockdown. Many businesses ended up pulling out advertisements, as part of budget cuts and also due to a drastic fall in the circulation of newspapers and magazines. The prolonged lockdown restrictions forced several publications to limit the number of pages, shut their editions and resort to layoffs.
Last year, the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) had also raised concerns over the rising newsprint and logistics costs and increasing preference for online content. It had also demanded a 50 per cent increase in government advertisement rates and a 200 per cent increase in the Centre’s spend on print media advertising and an immediate settlement of advertisement bills outstanding to both central and state governments.
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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.
