MAM
INXS signs recording agreement with Epic Records/SonyBMG
MUMBAI: The multi-platinum rock band INXS is about to kick off a new phase of its storied career. On the eve of this summer’s much-buzzed-about reality series Rock Star: INXS (premiering Tuesday, 12 July on Star World in India), INXS has inked a worldwide recording agreement with Epic Records/SonyBMG. The band will release its long-awaited new album in late 2005.
INXS’ debut album for the label will feature the winner of the Rock Star: INXS competition. The ambitious series, executive-produced by Mark Burnett, goes where no show has gone before, spanning 22 cities and six continents in its search for singers.
In the US, it premiers on 11 July on the CBS Television Network.
INXS’ Andrew Farriss said, “We’re very happy to be joining the Epic family and can’t wait to get back into the studio to record again. It’s been too long! Everyone in the band is truly looking forward to the months ahead and this great new chapter in our career.”
For the following 13 weeks INXS (Andrew, Tim and Jon Farriss, Kirk Pengilly and Garry Beers) will assess a group of 15 candidates in everything from songwriting to live performance.
The winner will record an album with the band — their first since the death of frontman Michael Hutchence in November 1997 — and embark on a worldwide arena tour spanning more than 100 cities.
Legendary A&R man John Kalodner (Aerosmith, Jimmy Page) will serve as A&R consultant on the band’s album.
Over the course of their 25-year-career, INXS has sold more than 30 million albums worldwide and scored number one hits on four different continents.
They’ve racked up 23 UK hits, 17 US Billboard hits (seven of which were top 10), 33 Australian hits and six consecutive top ten UK and US albums. They’ve performed over 4,000 live shows for more than 25 million people in almost 50 countries.
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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.
