MAM
Mehrotra Kapoor takes the editor’s chair in fine health
MUMBAI: The newsroom is getting a health check and Sonal Mehrotra Kapoor is writing the prescription. India Today Group has roped in the award-winning journalist as senior editor and anchor to helm the launch of what it calls India’s first-of-its-kind omni-platform brand dedicated to health and wellness. The initiative, rooted in the credo “to inform, not influence,” aims to bring science-backed, trustworthy content to a nation in the middle of what experts call a “health revolution.”
With over 17 years in the media trenches, Sonal has built a reputation for hard-hitting, human-centred storytelling across some of India’s biggest newsrooms from 11 years as associate editor and anchor at NDTV, to over three years as editor at Moneycontrol.com. Now, she brings that editorial muscle to a sector she’s deeply invested in, armed not just with a journalist’s instincts but also a Harvard certification in nutrition.
Reporting to B V Rao and working closely with Supriya Prasad, Sonal will spearhead content that blends digital innovation, credible journalism, and wellness expertise. It’s a brief that mirrors her own personal passions from cooking up wholesome meals and dancing to recharge, to hands-on parenting all while keeping a sharp eye on making complex health topics accessible and engaging.
India Today is betting big on the booming health and wellness space, and with Sonal at the helm, the platform promises to be as fact-rich as it is relatable proving that good health and good journalism aren’t mutually exclusive.
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.
