MAM
Rediffusion onboards Rahul Vaidya as business lead in Mumbai
Mumbai: Rediffusion has announced the appointment of Rahul Vaidya as business lead for ‘Bombay 3’.
An industry veteran, Vaidya has over 20 years of experience in advertising. Vaidya started his career as co-founder at Purple Focus – a full-service marketing and advertising firm serving clients across genres, categories, and geographies
Talking about his new role, Vaidya said, “I am happy to be at Rediffusion, one of India’s iconic advertising brands that have created, nurtured, and grown so many of the best brands in the country. I look forward to learning from both clients and peers, and bringing to the table my many years of varied experience for the benefit of my brands.”
He has previously worked with Eicher Trucks and Buses, Bajaj Auto, Star TV Network, Tata Indicom, Tata Teleservices, Microsoft Lumia, Nokia Mobiles, BIG Magic, BIG FM, Dainik Bhaskar, Patrika, Naidunia, BSL Suitings among others.
Welcoming Vaidya on board, Rediffusion – executive vice president, Kalyani Srivastava said, “Rahul brings entrepreneurial energy to our Mumbai office. He has maturity, and exposure across product categories, which we will leverage as an agency. Rahul is being assigned a large basket of brands, and we are confident that he will provide the necessary leadership to the team that works on them.”
Rediffusion – joint president, Navonil Chatterjee added, “Rahul will be a great resource in our dialogue with ’Bharat’. He has had very good exposure to markets outside metros, and his understanding of the aspirations and ambitions of consumers outside the big cities will be a big help to clients.”
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.
