MAM
The One Show opens its doors to the insurgents
NEW YORK: The One Club has shaken up its awards structure in the most significant overhaul in decades, launching The One Show Indies—a dedicated competition designed to level the playing field for independent agencies, design firms and freelance creators locked out of the global creative spotlight by better-resourced rivals.
The new category, debuting within The One Show 2026, is a direct challenge to the holding company orthodoxy that has long dominated the industry’s most prestigious accolade. Entry is restricted to truly independent outfits: at minimum 51 per cent founder or staff-owned, with no more than four physical offices. The signal is unmistakable. The One Club reckons independent shops are being starved of recognition, and it intends to rectify that.
The One Club chief executive Kevin Swanepoel framed the initiative as an act of creative liberation. “The One Show Indies is like a new rebel wing inside The One Show,” he said, summoning the rhetoric of insurgency. “We’re recognising independent shops and creators who make powerful work without holding company budgets and restraints.”
The economics of entry have been designed to entice participation. Submissions are capped at a modest ten entries per eligible shop, with each piece of work allowed into no more than three categories. Entry fees come at a steep 20 per cent discount off The One Show’s regular rate, whilst burdensome case study films are restricted in their use as judging material. The combined effect is tangible: a genuine attempt to remove the financial and administrative friction that deters cash-strapped independents from throwing their hat in the ring.
The jury will be drawn entirely from creatives at independent agencies, using the same rigorous judging standards that underpin The One Show’s reputation. Winners will claim Gold, Silver and Bronze Pencils and Merit awards, with an additional Crystal Pencil bestowed on an overall Best of Indies champion. A separate celebration event is planned, staged in casual surroundings away from the formal May ceremonies during Creative Week.
The One Show Indies crystallises a shift in the creative industry’s consciousness. Independents have spent years grumbling about glass ceilings at award shows dominated by multinational holding companies. They’ve complained—often with justification—that the costs of entry and the judging structures inherently favour agencies with dedicated awards departments, bigger budgets, and armies of administrative staff to shepherd work through the submission process.
This new category doesn’t solve that structural imbalance entirely. But it cracks the door open. For smaller shops punching above their weight, a One Show Pencil—even one contested exclusively amongst independents—remains a genuine prize. It offers market validation, bragging rights, and the kind of industry credibility that shapes client perceptions and staff recruitment.
The One Club’s motives are plainly also commercial. Awards bodies thrive on volume and participation. Attracting a hitherto underserved cohort of independents will swell submission numbers and fortify The One Club’s position as the creative industry’s dominant credentialing authority.
Entry deadlines are stacked across four rounds, with the super-early window closing 30 October 2025, offering the deepest discounts. Regular entry runs until 23 January 2026, with a final window through 20 February 2026. Judging commences in January, with winners announced in May.
The One Club operates as a non-profit, recycling revenue from entries back into industry programming across four pillars: education, inclusion and diversity, gender equality, and creative development. That circularity—awards funding grassroots support—gives the organisation a moral sheen beyond the commercial calculus of conventional awards schemes.
The One Show Indies lands at a moment when the creative industry is reassessing who deserves a voice. This rebel wing may just prove to be the most inclusive—and competitive—corner of the awards landscape.
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.
