MAM
Percept integrates media companies into single entity ‘Percept Media’
MUMBAI: Percept has restructured and integrated its media businesses into a single entity ‘Percept Media’ with effect from 6 July 2015. The restructure will enable Percept to bring greater focus and offer better synergies and efficiencies between the various media arms, thereby presenting a wider array of services and solutions to stakeholders.
Currently, Percept Group encompasses Allied Media – the media planning, evaluation and buying unit along with the digital media services arm and Percept Out of Home – the communications specialist providing solutions in the outdoor and rural media arena. The revised structure will see the two media service companies integrate into a single vertical under the nomenclature ‘Percept Media’, to become a single platform offering innovative and collaborative 360-degree media solutions to stakeholders.
Percept COO Ajay Upadhyay will serve as chief mentor to guide the integration process of the media vertical, while Percept One COO Sanjay Shukla will be responsible for directly supervising the entire integration and restructuring process as a part of the Percept One portfolio.
Following the exit of Allied Media erstwhile CEO Shripad Kulkarni, earlier this month, P M Balakrishna has been elevated to the position. He will also hold the position of Percept Media executive vice president.
Rajneesh Bahl has been promoted to the post of Percept Media executive VP and will also continue to serve in the capacity of Percept Out of Home CEO, overseeing the entire OOH operations for the company. Milind Dewulkar will take charge as CFO of the newly created Percept Media vertical.
The restructuring in the Media business is in keeping with the evolving and dynamic changes in the M&E industry and will enable Percept to offer greater efficiencies in the way it operates and functions. The new structure would also offer Percept’s clients greater synergy in the range of solutions and service offerings in the media domain thereby translating into greater value add and a heightened level of customer service and value for all stakeholders.
The Percept Media leadership team will soon be drawing out a comprehensive plan encompassing the branding, structure, services, revenue and business development strategy for FY’16.
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.
