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GroupM & Dancestar to develop first global electronic music TV platform
MUMBAI: GroupM has inked a partnership with Dancestar Ventures to bring the Electronic Music Awards Show to Asia and other key television markets worldwide.
Dancestar Asia will be the first project of the partnership and will be developed for TV distribution in the region. It will celebrate the achievement of Asian and international DJs and artists. Scheduled to be held in Singapore in December 2015, Dancestar Asia is intended to be a two-hour award ceremony featuring 21 categories of achievement.
Winners for the 21 categories will be decided by public voting via several major social media channels across the region that will be announced shortly. Dancestar Asia will also feature 12 live performance collaborations from global artists in what is expected to be an epic night of music showcasing the best of the exploding electronic music scene in Asia.
Dancestar CEO and founder Andy Ruffell said, “Dancestar is back and we are delighted to be partnering with GroupM to bring this show to Singapore in 2015. EDM is now a $4 billion global industry with with DJs earning $20 to $40 million a year, Asia is primed for an electronic music explosion. We are developing the Dancestar Awards Show Platform as a series of market specific televised events in Las Vegas, London and Singapore. GroupM provide unrivaled expertise that will enable us to bring electronic music culture and global brands together on TV.”
GroupM Content APAC CEO Josh Black adds, “We are delighted to be working with Andy and his team at Dancestar Ventures. The EDM industry is exploding and we jumped at the opportunity to be part of the Dancestar Asia Awards Show and the other projects around the globe. Our team at GroupM Content will be helping Dancestar, drive a range of commercial opportunities from partnerships through to licensing, broadcast and content distribution.”
MAM
Gurpreet Singh named President of DishTV Alumni Network
Former Dish TV executive to lead community building and collaboration.
MUMBAI: Back to the dish, but this time it’s about connections, not channels Gurpreet Singh is returning to familiar territory with a new mandate that swaps subscribers for relationships. Singh has been appointed President of the DishTV Alumni Network, a move aimed at strengthening ties among former employees and building a more engaged professional community around the Dish TV ecosystem. The initiative reflects a growing trend among large organisations to formalise alumni networks as platforms for collaboration, mentorship and business opportunities.
The appointment draws on Singh’s deep-rooted history with Dish TV, where he held multiple leadership roles over nearly a decade. As National Business Head between June 2019 and September 2020, he oversaw profit and loss as well as operations, managing revenues of Rs 6,000 crore and leading a team of around 1,250 employees across the country. His tenure included working alongside two regional business heads and 16 circle heads, underscoring the scale of operations he handled.
Prior to that, Singh served as Executive Vice President and National Head for Sales and Revenue from 2016 to 2019, and earlier as Senior Vice President and National Head for Sales and Revenue. He also briefly led international operations as Country Head for Sri Lanka, further expanding his exposure across markets.
His broader career spans leadership roles across telecom and consumer businesses, including a stint as Chief Operating Officer at Bharti Airtel’s Malawi operations, senior leadership roles at Reliance Communications, and earlier positions at Hindustan Sanitaryware and Kodak India, where he spent over a decade.
In his new role, Singh is expected to focus on reconnecting former employees, fostering collaboration, and building a structured alumni ecosystem that leverages shared experience and industry networks. As companies increasingly recognise the long-term value of their extended workforce, the DishTV Alumni Network appears set to turn nostalgia into a strategic asset, one connection at a time.
