MAM
Media professionals wish their best friends a Happy Friendship Day
MUMBAI: Friendship is the purest and most beautiful relationship that two individuals can share. It can evolve from any relation and can even metamorphose into new partnerships. The world is celebrating this relationship today by marking Friendship Day. Globally, people will be appreciating their friends and will be sending them emotional messages and thus, Indiantelevision.com asked the media industry who their best friends are and here are some sweet responses that we got:
i9 Communications head Munmun S Gentle
I have two best friends: Rachana Chhedha aka Rachuwhom I met in class 1, and Deepak Gaur whom I met while we were working for the same organisation 12 years back. Rachna is from the hospitality industry while Deepak is currently working with a publication. These two have been my pillars of strength throughout my journey. It is very important for one to connect with like-minded people who understand you.
Rachana was the one who motivated me the most during my career shift from sales to public relations. She has also taught me how to remain calm and make right decisions even under extreme pressure. And Deepak has been constantly guiding me with work. Whenever I face any crazy challenge professionally, he is my go-to person because he always tells me, and makes me believe that everything will be alright. He will list down enough samples for me to solve my problems. He is the one person with whom I can talk my heart out as I know he will not judge me.
Both these beautiful people make my life simple and they are the people I can confide my thoughts in. I wish them and all a very Happy Friendship Day!"
Mirum India creative director Kishor Shembekar
It is a rare happening that your boss becomes your best friend but I have been fortunate enough to live this in my life. Vivek Shinde was once my boss and is like family now. Our interactions while working made us know each other better as an individual and developed our friendship. We are still in touch and would continue throughout our lives. We have been friends for almost two decades now and he continues to be a guide and a mentor for me since my initial days in the advertising world. Happy Friendship Day, Vivek!
Communicate India founder & CEO Akshaara Lalwani
My best friend is definitely my husband Rishaan. He is probably the best mentor I’ve ever had and the best support system I could have going through my professional journey. When I’m going through a challenging period, he has been extremely supportive, motivating, and gives me the courage to keep going. Your friends and associates might not always call you out when you’re slipping up, or about to drop the ball, but your best friend always will, and Rishaan does that. He also encourages me to focus on my strengths and not let my weaknesses get the better of me. There are days where he completes my sentences and can read my thoughts. He is not afraid to make me reevaluate some of my decisions and pushes me to be a better person, a better professional, and a better leader.
White Rivers Media co-founder Shrenik Gandhi
Mitesh & I go back a long way. Almost a decade back, we did our MBAs together. Coincidentally, we also share our birthdays and that also happens to be the day we launched White Rivers Media 7 years back, on 7 August.
He plays the role of my right-brain. All creative and strategic calls of the company are taken by Mitesh while I look after expansion, operations, and people.
From the first hire to the first client to the first award, to the first fire, to a first big loss, to the first big office, to first new out of city office, to the first 100 employees, the stories are infinite, regrets are none. Onwards and upwards from here. Happy Friendship Day Mitesh!
AD Agencies
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.
