MAM
Sahara steps in with Rs 10 mn to end hockey pay row
MUMBAI: The Sahara Group brought the striking Indian hockey players back into the playing arena just days before the World Cup.
The five-day row over issue of payment has been resolved with team sponsor Sahara‘s announcement of releasing Rs 10 million. Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president Suresh Kalmadi also stepped in to resolve the crisis.
Kalmadi rushed to Pune this morning, where the base camp has been organised, after the talks between Hockey India (HI) officials and players failed to break the impasse.
Kalmadi announced his full support to the players and agreed with most of their demands, while Sahara actually bailed the board out by releasing Rs 10 million immediately.
Sahara issued a statement saying, “In the genuine interest of the national hockey players, Sahara India Pariwar has decided to pay immediately Rs 10 million in suspense account to Hockey India, only for distribution to the players so that they can peacefully and happily practice and play for the country.”
“Hockey has been our national game. It can never be a national shame. It will be our national pride. The players all feel that they want to bring up Indian hockey. I assured them of full support,” Kalmadi told reporters.
He also said that a ‘Players‘ Welfare Development Fund‘ will be created with former Indian captain Dhanraj Pillay in charge.
Sahara had paid Rs 7.7 million in December as advance for the quarter of 15 January to 14 April 2010. “Sahara will go through the past accounts of Hockey India and shall take suitable decision for this amount,” the company said.
The 22 probables for World Cup stopped training at the Belawadi Sports Complex in Pune on Friday over pending monies owed to them. The strike was, however, called off on Saturday after six players held a marathon meeting with Indian hockey officials here.
But the truce did not even last for a day after the players decided to resume their strike.
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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.
