NEW DELHI: BARC India COO Romil Ramgarhia has decided to move on from the ratings provider. He joined the organisation in 2014 as a chief business officer and was elevated to COO role about two years back.
“Romil Ramgarhia has resigned from the services of BARC India effective 31 July 2020,” shared BARC India.
Ramagarhia was one of the founding members of BARC India. In his previous stints, he had worked with Zee Entertainment Enterprise as CCO, Viacom18 Media as head of the commercial, Bharti Airtel as manager and at Asian Paints as an account executive.
An affable executive, Ramgarhia was instrumental along with former CEO Partho Dasgupta to help establish BARC as the de facto viewership ratings standard in India.
It was only last year, that BARC had roped in Sunil Lulla as CEO to replace Partho Dasgupta who resiged to set up his own venture. It is not known where Ramgarhia is headed, at the time of writing.
MUMBAI: Content 360 agency Monk Media Network has announced the elevation of Tanya Mathana as the COO of the agency.
Mathana, who was earlier AVP brand strategy, joined the agency in 2017 and since then has played an integral role in the growth of the company.
In her new role, effective immediately, Tanya will head the agency operations and ensure that all teams are aligned to the singular vision of the agency. In her capacity as the new COO, her key responsibilities will also include overseeing New Venture Strategy and Company Administration.
Monk Media Network founder and CEO Ashish Patkar said, “We have always believed in elevating home grown talent. Tanya has been a key factor in our success over the past few years. Under her our client strategy offering was immensely strengthened. I look forward to partnering with her and all of our key stakeholders in ensuring a far more cohesive service offering for our clients. This elevation is key to our growth plan which will be announced in the next few weeks.”
Tanya Mathana commented, “It gives me immense pleasure to embark on this new journey at Monk Media Network. Together, with Ashish and the entire team, I am sure we will continue delivering long term strategies creating value propositions.”
Mathana is an experienced digital strategist having over 11 years of experience and a demonstrated history of working in the advertising industry. Skilled in brand planning & communication, digital strategy, market research, quantitative and qualitative research, digital marketing, and data and insight mining she has worked with DDB Mudra, Contract Advertising, Mirum and Everest Brand Solutions prior to joining Monk Media Network.
MUMBAI: India’s leading digital products company, Times Internet announced the elevation of Puneet Gupt as the COO of Times Internet,with immediate effect.
Puneet has been associated with the Times Group for over ten years and and since 2011, he has been head of Times Internet’s vast and diverse News business. Under his leadership, the company has been able to reinforce the #1 position of TOI, reach the #1 position in languages and launched products like eTimes, GadgetsNow and NewsPoint to address emerging opportunities. Puneet has played a critical role in Times Internet’s News business registering a stunning 6.5X growth and enabled the company to become the world’s #1 premium digital publisher.
Announcing Puneet’s elevation Gautam Sinha, CEO of Times Internet said, “Puneet has been an invaluable asset to Times Internet. He is audacious, customer-obsessed and has rich experience in starting, growing and scaling up digital businesses. Puneet will be working closely with me to drive our ambitious growth agenda. He will lead our efforts in making Times Internet the go-to digital destination for every Indian’s information, entertainment and transaction needs.”
Puneet added, “Times Internet is a company that dares you to think big, and empowers you to make your dreams a reality. I look forward to amplify our growth by identifying and building category defining digital products that become the benchmark in quality and value proposition for our customers.”
It’s turning out to be quite an eventful year for Times Internet. The company partnered with Tencent to invest in Gaana, acquired and re-launched a video OTT platform MX Play, as well as launched popular gaming platforms like BaaziNow & CricPlay. The company’s dining out platform, Dineout acquired restaurant management software firm Torqus last month.
With 40+ digital products, Times Internet reaches 400+ million people every month. Most of its digital products are market leaders across news, sports, music, video and more in India.
Asia TV is a platform initiated to engage the British born Asians and the ethnic immigrants to stay informed with ongoing Local community updates to strengthen community networking. Superstar TV is in the Bollywood and Lifestyle space . MITiVi OTT Platform offers a very engaging user interface with popular categories for live streaming, VODs, Movie library, overseas content with live TV and education.
Kaushik has been tasked with leading the charge of two channels apart from creating the B2B media business on Asia television Network and B2C on MiTiVi platform . Kaushik comes with a robust body of experience spanning almost two decades across Television,digital, media and entertainment and pharmaceutical sectors.
Prior to joining Asia Television, Kaushik has worked with industry leaders including Viacom18 Media, Zee Tv, INX Media, Fulford India Limited ( Subsidiary of Merck & Co,USA ) and so on, while also testing entrepreneurial waters.
Commenting on the new appointment, Taha Coburn Kutay, CEO – Asia Television India/ Chairman –United Kingdom Asian Business council, says, " We are thrilled to have Kaushik join us to strengthen the team. He brings invaluable insights that will be instrumental in shaping our journey towards achieving the leadership position in the media space."
Speaking about his role, Kaushik , " It has indeed been a pleasure to be a part of such an esteemed organisation. Having a natural flair for commercial and sales, I look forward to add more value to the firm with my abilities in managing large scale business operations. I am glad to join the leadership team and am sure this is going to be an interesting and learning journey ahead."
Kaushik has a Doctorate in Philosophy(PhD) and completed the thesis under Dr Piyush Sinha ( IIM- Ahmedabad ) and has a MBA in marketing . Apart from that he has completed his senior strategic management from IIM Calcutta.
MUMBAI: Swiggy, the food ordering and delivery company, has recently appointed Vivek Sunder as its first chief operating officer. In his new role, Sunder will be in-charge of developing and executing Swiggy’s strategic direction and priorities to drive organisational growth and operational excellence.
Swiggy CEO Sriharsha Majety said, “Strength lies in the quality and talent of our team, which has received an incredible boost with Vivek coming on board. I am confident that his proven track record and extensive experience, coupled with a laser-focus on industry-leading operational practices will drive and extend Swiggy’s upward trajectory.”
Commenting on his new role, Sunder said, “It is impressive to see just how much Swiggy has been able to achieve in less than four years through an obsessive focus on the consumer and flawless last-mile execution.”
“I am extremely energised to help lead the company to its next phase of innovation and growth tied with operational excellence,” he added.
Sunder brings with him 20 years of experience in the FMCG industry. He has been working at the intersection of business and technology across several leadership roles and geographies at Procter & Gamble (P&G).
In his most recent role as the Managing Director, P&G, East Africa, he was instrumental in driving both top and bottom line growth while expanding its market share and margins in a difficult macroeconomic climate.
MUMBAI: Banijay Group is soon going to set up Banijay Studios Italy in Rome, hiring Massimo Del Frate, former head of drama at Endemol Shine Italy, to lead the new venture.
As a new scripted player in the Italian market, Banijay will now develop original IP for local broadcasters, while also looking at opportunities to locally adapt Banijay Group’s global content catalogue. Del Frate will look to generate co-productions with other parts of Banijay Group.
“As a leading and well-respected talent in the Italian scripted market, Del Frate is the perfect partner to establish and drive Banijay Studios Italy,” said Banijay Group COO Peter Langenberg as quoted by Rapid TV News.
Del Frate worked in Endemol Shine Italy, as the head of drama and was responsible for growing the scripted division from 2002 to 2018. Previously, he was responsible for scripted operations at Mediaset’s Canal 5.
The new head feels that Banijay’s mission is to establish Banijay Studios Italy as an independent home and partner for leading Italian drama talent, as well as international authors and directors. Collaborating with the top storytellers in the market, Banijay hopes to generate a healthy scripted slate bursting with brilliant and distinctive drama.
The company has worked with a range of media companies in Italy, including the producer of local versions of x Factor, MasterChef, DRY and Don’t Repeat Yourself. The move to expand Banijay’s content creation capabilities follows the opening of a studio in Germany earlier this year.
Banijay Group has already entered the Asian market in partnership with media veteran Deepak Dhar.
An independent content creation group, Banijay Group produces content for television and multimedia platforms. Spread across entities in seventeen territories, its library includes programmes spanning genres like entertainment, drama, factual entertainment, kids and reality; all licensed internationally by its global distribution arm Banijay Rights. Some notable formats include reality television series Keeping up with the Kardashians, crime drama series Underbelly and ABC’s reality television program Wife Swap.
MUMBAI: From starting her career at an FMCG company to mastering the entertainment business, the journey of Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd’s (Shemaroo) chief operating officer, Kranti Gada, in the world of business is quite intriguing. One of the youngest COOs in the industry, Gada was elevated to the position in March this year after witnessing many a change within the company and the industry. She has been championing the ‘Go Digital’ initiative right from its nascent stage at the company.
The beginning
Gada started working with PepsiCo after finishing her course in marketing at NMIMS in 2004. She set her sights on working for an FMCG company and only applied to such companies during campus placement. It is at PepsiCo—while moving from shop to shop selling packets to travelling in unreserved compartments of trains and conducting various surveys—that she got to know customers’ mindset innately. The lessons learnt during these two years with the company have served her well.
She believes that staying connected with customers is critical for any company, whether it is B2B or B2C. “If you are B2C, you have to be in contact with these customers. But if you are B2B2C like us, while our content may be sold to a network that is B2B, the ultimate group that the stakeholders are servicing are consumers. So, knowing what he likes or dislikes is really important,” Gada said in an interaction with indiantelevision.com.
A new innings
In 2006, due to unavoidable reasons, Gada returned to Mumbai. Even as she was returning, she got an offer from a leading FMCG company that she turned down 12 days prior to joining. The very same year, she joined Shemaroo, an unlikely move for a person “who was not a heavy consumer of entertainment content”. She got into the company at a time when it was in the midst of evaluating new areas to enter. Out of those new initiatives, the digital piece was the one on which Gada focused on since the beginning. Another area on which she kept a keen eye on was gaming, a very forward-looking initiative at that point.
Unbeknownst to many, Shemaroo dabbled in the gaming sector for 1.5 to 2 years after one year of Gada’s joining. The initiative, however, did not take off as well as they thought. “We had a development studio. India had not come up with its own IPs still. We wanted to create IPs around our brands,” she said. Despite creating learnings for the future, success was elusive for the company in gaming.
The digital push
Being early in the digital piece, however, really paid off for Shemaroo. From early 2000, the company started buying digital rights in a bid to create a library. When it decided to go ahead with the mobile division, it already had a library of content to offer. While the company was largely associated with home videos in the 1990s, after the change in focus, Shemaroo reoriented its offerings by repurposing content for digital.
At present, YouTube is a monetised platform for the company. It has teams actively curating content for more than 50 YouTube channels under the umbrella. The eternal appeal of classic Hindi songs helps FilmiGaane, one of its flagship channels, to add a million subscribers every 45 days.
With the digital revolution, the Indian media landscape has changed dramatically in the last two years. While many content companies and broadcasters are coming up with OTT platforms, content curation remains a big challenge. While some of the OTT platforms have really niche content, several platforms are vying to become a “mini-YouTube”. Along with explosion of content creation, Gada feels that there is a real need for curation brands that understand consumers well.
OTT plans
“I would say that at Shemaroo we absolutely should do the curation piece for sure. But I would say that having your own OTT platform is little beyond just curation. There is the technology piece and the customer acquisition piece, which is very critical,” she commented when asked if Shemaroo had plans to get into the space.
“We will definitely have our own technology platform; we will invest in it and build out a platform. It’s the consumer strategy that we are still figuring out,” Gada added. For a brand like Shemaroo, which has been in the content business for a long time, it would be relatively easy to leverage that customer understanding after years of tracking the market one would imagine.
Areas of focus
While digital is going to remain a focus area in the next few years, few other areas such as multi-genre and multi-language strategies in content will remain critical. The company has also been building up its devotional content in a big way. In the pursuit of creating a new offering, the company has created several documentaries in the form of travelogues. Moreover, to make consumers aware about its new initiatives, Shemaroo has new marketing strategies up its sleeve.
After 12 years into her journey with the company and being an inseparable part of Shemaroo’s digital strategy, Gada, as the new COO, has come to terms with the demands of her position. Despite being young in age and experience, she is thankful to Shemaroo’s management for keeping the faith in her.
MUMBAI: Viacom18 Motion Pictures, India’s fully integrated motion pictures studio, has delivered a plethora of critically and commercially successful movies. It has always disrupted certain reliable formulas to ensure that the content remains true to its audience. Now, it is venturing into the digital space with Tipping Point, which will feature a host of web series, short films and non-traditional formats to entertain its online audience. The brand will extend the banner’s ethos by creating contemporary, engaging and path breaking content for online audiences.
Viacom18 Motion Pictures COO Ajit Andhare said, “Having conquered the big screen through unconventional narratives, it is time for Viacom18 Motion Pictures to make its mark in the rapidly emerging digital content space. Tipping Point – our digital content brand will appeal to consumers looking for edgy, contemporary, provocative yet relatable content typically missing in the traditional or mainstream media. Through Tipping Point, Viacom18 Motion Pictures will evolve from being a film studio into a holistic content studio, reaching beyond theatrical offerings into millions of screens on mobile & personal devices with its unique storytelling.”
As a part of the Tipping Point’s offering, the brand has announced collaborations with some of the best from the entertainment industry.
Speaking on this collaboration, producer Imtiaz Ali said, “Excited about my foray into digital series – very happy that Window Seat Films and I are working with the team at Viacom18 Motion Pictures. I have lived with this story for a long time and eager to bring it to life now.”
The list of soon-to-be-launched web series include ‘X Ray–Selected Satyajit Shorts’, a 12-part series presentation directed by the National award-winning filmmaker, Srijit Mukherji, an untitled crime thriller created by Imtiaz Ali, ‘Jamtara’ a story about a small district in Jharkhand, known to be India’s phishing capital, directed by Soumendra Padhi and ‘Best Days’, a psychological thriller by Abhishek Sengupta of the web-series Lakhon Mein Ek fame.
MUMBAI: Network18, one of India’s most diversified media conglomerates, has elevated Avinash Kaul as chief operating officer. In his new role, Kaul will oversee the operations of all national and regional news channels.
He will continue to remain the managing director of A+E Networks at TV18.
Kaul joined TV18, one of India’s leading television broadcast networks, in mid-2014 and since then has been responsible for the overall profit and loss responsibilities of all the brands managed by him.
Network18 recently unveiled India’s largest News Network–News18 Network at a highly successful event Rising India in New Delhi. The event marked an important milestone in the journey of the group as it transitioned the entire general news network under one brand.
Kaul has nearly 20 years of experience across advertising sales, distribution, programming and marketing. Prior to joining TV18, he was the CEO at Times Television Network managing Times Now, ET Now and Zoom.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Kaul is a board member of the Media Research Users Council (MRUC), an industry body that owns and manages the IRS (Indian Readership Survey).
MUMBAI: Priyanka Chopra’s production house Purple Pebble Pictures has appointed Petrina D’rozario as the chief operating officer (COO). The production house has been jointly set up by Chopra and Dr. Madhu Chopra with an aim to produce good quality content across films (regional and mainstream) television and digital space.
D’rozario, in her new role, will oversee the content that comes into Purple Pebble and identify the right partners to work with who have the passion in the business of storytelling. She would also help develop business across the verticals and oversee the structure and day to day operations. Along with this, she will also be managing existing teams at Purple Pebble and develop IP across the verticals.
Petrina spearheads the shaping of WIFT India (www.wift.co.in) and is responsible for the development of the chapter’s strategy, network and aim to enhance the visibility of women working in film & television. She also sits on the board as the Founder President of WIFT India and on the International Board of WIFT (L.A) in the Communications and Marketing committee.
Speaking about her new role, D’Rozario said, “WIFT India was a great platform for me to meet some amazing talent from the industry. I have personally met people who have had scripts and asked for help to meet the right producers. Hopefully, I being in a position of whetting projects at Purple Pebble, can encourage some of these talented storytellers to reach out to me.”
Commenting on the appointment, Dr. Madhu Chopra said, “Purple Pebble Pictures is a start-up production house with the heart of a lion. Fearless to explore and work on films across genres and languages. We have just started and have already completed two feature films. Our third film `Sarvann’ is due to release in December. Petrina joins us at the crux of imbibing a corporate culture to our modus operandi and with her experience we hope Purple Pebble Pictures becomes a production house that has the working style of a corporate and heart of a home especially to talent that needs a platform to showcase their abilities.”
