MAM
Yesudas quits Lintas after eight and a half-year stint
NEW DELHI: S Yesudas, head of Lintas’ recently launched media specialist Insight and one of the founding members of Initiative Media, has resigned.
The development follows a major restructuring in Lintas’ media operations, in which Yesudas was appointed as the head of Insight. The media specialist was launched earlier this year.
Confirming the development, Yesudas said, “Yes, I have decided to move on. I felt it’s time for a change. I have a couple of offers from the media industry, not that I didn’t have offers before (quitting). I am evaluating the options and soon would be in a position to share my new assignment.”
In his 13-year stint with the media industry, Yesudas has been involved with Lintas for eight and a half years. He started his career with Da’Cunha Associates. Thereafter, he worked with Karishma Advertising and Grey Worldwide before moving to Lintas.
“I feel media has an important role to play, especially with the kind of knowledge, information and tools which are available. The clients are looking for more accountability. Whether it was Insight or my new assignment, I feel we have a lot more to contribute and I intend to continue to work in this direction,” said Yesudas.
Apart from clients like Bajaj Auto, Parle Agro, Pantaloons, Idea Cellular and Sansui, which were shifted from fellow media companies, Insight had won its first account in UTI. “We started off pretty well as we won UTI, an account worth Rs 40 crore (Rs 400 million),” he said.
Yesudas was reporting to Lowe, Media Services & Healthcare, Director, Lynn de Souza. Apart from launching Insight with Yesudas as its head, Kartik Iyer too was promoted to the Initiative Media president designate, a move resulting from the impressive growth of Lowe Group’s media agencies in the last year.
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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.
