MAM
Reuters in tie up with Airtel to offer commodity price service
MUMBAI: Reuters and mobile operator Airtel are working jointly on a pilot project to provide commodity prices through text messaging service.
Aimed at the farmer community, subscribers can receive quick updates on the commodity market.
The pilot project is slated to kick off in August for the Maharashtra region, Reuters South Asia managing director Samir Shah said on the sidelines of a press conference.
The messaging service will be provided in the Marathi language. The farmers will have access to real-time information on commodity prices. This will enable them to make informed choices about when and where to sell their produce.
“The aim is to link farmers and traders and also provide them reports on commodity prices from all major markets. By using the mobile messaging service, the farmers can obtain the market updates. They can also be informed about the international prices in their own language,” Shah said.
Reuters is targeting early next year to launch this service on a national scale by tieing up with various mobile operators.
Earlier addressing the press conference, Shah said Yes Bank has chosen to make prices on Reuters Trading for Foreign Exchange (RTFX).
The bank has also signed up for Reuters leading edge pricing engine technology, Reuters Electronic Trading for Automated Dealing (RETAD), to automate its FX transactions in a real time environment over the bank’s intranet.
Recently, Reuters had signed in Union Bank of India, the first public sector bank in India to become a market maker on Reuters Trading for Foreign Exchange (RTFX) and Reuters Trading for Bullion.
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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.
