MAM
Viacom’s restructuring claims another victim Jonathan Dolgen
MUMBAI: Just a couple of days after Mel Karmazin left Viacom as its COO another high profile executive has jumped ship. Viacom Entertainment Group chairman Jonathan Dolgen has announced his decision to resign as of 15 July.
This does not come as a surprise. Viacom’s chairman and CEO Sumner Redstone had given Freston and Moonves different aspects of Dolgen’s job. Dolgen oversaw the operations of Paramount Pictures, Paramount TV, Simon & Schuster, Famous Players, and Paramount Parks.
After the reshuffle Freston was also put in charge of Paramount Parks, Simon & Schuster and Paramount Pictures. Moonves now oversees Paramount TV. What is galling is that despite all this Redstone had tried to persuade Dolgen not to leave.
Not surprisingly in a statement Dolgen attributed the changes in Viacom’s management structure to his decision to step aside. On a more generous note he added, “It has been a privilege to work with Sumner Redstone for more than a decade and to have participated in the growth and success of Viacom. In Tom and Les, Sumner has chosen exceptional executives to help him lead this company well into the future”. Dolgen also thanked the head of Paramount Pictures Sherry Lansing. The two were responsible for three Best Picture Oscar winners including Titanic and Braveheart.
Redstone praised Dolgen’s contribution to the film studio Paramount saying, “Under his leadership over the past decade Paramount made great pictures profitably. He also ran one of the most successful television production operations in the industry, and pioneered the concept of co-financing and financial discipline. This has since been emulated by other motion picture companies.”
On the flip side reports further indicate that in addition to being passed over in the reshuffle Dolgen has had uneasy relationships with both Freston and Moonves. He and Moonves fought when control of the UPN Network was taken from Paramount and handed to CBS three years ago.
There was also friction between Paramount and MTV. In the past the two units have worked together to produce films based on MTV properties. At that time MTV had complained that Paramount was behaving in a high-handed way.
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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.
