MAM
Josh Talks appoints Darpan Sah as vice president–YouTube
MUMBAI: Regional content and upskilling platform, Josh Talks has appointed Darpan Sah as vice president–YouTube. In this role, he will be leading the expansion of Josh Talks’ content channels on YouTube, which are already present in 10 regional languages and three categories.
In a career spanning over a decade, Sah has worked with various corporate brands across the industries. Before joining Josh Talks, he served as the chief sub-editor at new-age Hindi digital news brand, The Lallantop where he played an instrumental role to scale their subscriber base from one million to 20 million. He was recently awarded at the ENBA Awards 2021 for two shows that he produced at The Lallantop – Ek Naya Paisa and Kharcha Pani.
On the appointment, Josh Talks CEO & co-founder Supriya Paul said, “Majority of our viewers come from Tier 2+ cities and have different content preferences. Our team closely monitors these needs, identifies gaps, and creates videos that then get 85 million+ views every month. Our goal for the next few months is to double down on this distribution by expanding into more regional languages, going hyper-local, and creating compelling content that seamlessly blends inspiration and information. I’m confident that with Darpan’s in-depth understanding and with his expertise in scaling video-first content, we will scale Josh Talks’ network of channels to new heights!”
Darpan Sah said, “It has been incredible to follow Josh Talks’ journey and witness them build one of the largest regional content platforms in India. I am excited to join their team and look forward to leading their content expansion plans as they go deeper into every district and dialect of India. As part of this strategy, we will be launching a slew of new channels in the districts of Bihar and Josh Bhojpuri in the next quarter.”
As a writer, Sah has created numerous pieces covering gender equality, the rights of women and the LGBTQ+ community, and other pertinent issues that form the bedrock of the Indian community. In 2016, he published his first book “Luka Jhanki”, an anthology of Hindi poems, and is currently working on his second book, which is a collection of short stories.
With a subscriber base of over 16 million, Josh Talks has recorded more than 2 billion total views across its channels. In FY 2021-22, their revenue from YouTube has grown by 118 per cent on a year-over-year basis with Hindi, English, and Marathi, being a few of their top-performing channels, the company said in a statement.
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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.
