MAM
Tamil Nadu ad market can’t revive until movie releases happen
NEW DELHI: Holding the highest share of regional ad volumes at 16 per cent in Covid times, as highlighted in the TAM AdEx data released recently, the Tamil Nadu ad market wasn’t immune to the bloodbath on ad revenues that the overall industry witnessed due to the lockdown.
As shared by The Media Ant co-founder Samir Choudhary, the market witnessed at least a 50 percent drop in overall revenues in the March-June ‘20 period.
Fourth Dimension Media Solutions CEO Shankar B elaborates, “In Tamil Nadu, almost 30-35 per cent of the ad revenues are driven by cinema and retail, both of which were zero during the Covid2019-period. Even if we talk just about cinema, Tamil Nadu is amongst the top movie-producing states in the country, giving a tough competition to Bollywood. We release around 15 films a month and each banner spends approximately Rs 3-3.5 crore for seven days’ promotional slots, which most other categories would spend in a month. With that being nil, you can imagine the impact the market has witnessed.”
For television alone, like most other markets, the viewership and ad volumes both were up during the Covid2019 period. As highlighted by the tenth edition of BARC+Nielsen weekly reports, Tamil channels were recording 15 per cent hike in viewership as compared to pre-Covid2019 periods in week 26, starting 27 June. News consumption was at 177 per cent high.
While the ad volumes dipped by 41 per cent overall during the past three months, the trend started moving upwards month-on-month as the situation improved, TAM AdEx data reveals. During Covid2019, ad volumes across all Tamil language genre surged by 29 per cent in June 2020 over April 2020 and by 27 per cent in May 2020 over April 2020.
However, this did not result in revenues as channels were functioning at drastically lower operating rates, which were dropped by 50-60 per cent to keep the advertiser sentiment positive, shares Choudhary.
Shankar B notes that while some of his clients took the conscious call to not cut ad rates, certain channels took the decision to announce rampant discounts. Some were even functioning at 1:2 bonus, which means offering two slots at the rate of one to keep the inventories filled. “Despite the ad volumes being high on certain channels, they recorded 35-40 per cent drop in ad revenues.”
However, the situation gradually started improving. Choudhary feels that the market will see its revival around Diwali, with advertiser sentiment improving. But Shankar B feels that it is impossible to pin a date on industry revival. “Things are getting better but the channels are still running at discount prices. We can’t say when will the revenues be like pre-Covid2019 times. But one thing is sure, Tamil Nadu market won’t be able to get back on its feet until cinema and retail sectors start functioning like earlier as they account for almost one-third of the revenues there.”
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.
