ITV

Tag: COO

  • Keshet UK hires Sammy Nourmand as COO

    Keshet UK hires Sammy Nourmand as COO

    MUMBAI: Keshet UK, part of Keshet International, has appointed Sammy Nourmand to the newly created role of Chief Operating Officer, as it steps up the pace of its UK production business and underlines its commitment to the UK market. Nourmand’s appointment is effective immediately giving him oversight of ITV’s version of Keshet’s interactive talent show RISING STAR and several more projects in the development pipeline with UK broadcasters.

    Based in London, Nourmand will report to Alon Shtruzman, CEO of Keshet International which also has local production offices in Canada, Australia, Keshet/DCP in the US in addition to the company’s distribution arm.

    Sammy brings over 20 years’ experience in the UK’s independent TV sector, having worked on a large number of shows including big budget productions for broadcasters in both the UK and US. He was most recently CEO of DCD Media before leaving in late 2012 to take up various consultancy roles with UK and US-based production companies, includingKeshet.

    Keshet International, CEO, Alon Shtruzman said “As our UK office goes from strength to strength I’m delighted to have Sammy on board to navigate our journey during this significant growth period. The experience he has built over many years in the industry will be a great asset to us.”

    Sammy Nourmand added “The lure of Keshet’s impressive track record in creating successful shows and Alon’s irrepressible enthusiasm were hard to resist. I’m pleased to be joining Keshet at this exciting time.”

    Nourmand began his career at Michael Hurll Television, working on the British Comedy Awards. He joined September Films in 1998 and went on to become CEO in 2005. Under his stewardship, the company enjoyed its longest period of sustained growth and stability, more than trebling its turnover and establishing a US office. It was acquired by DCD Media in August 2007.

    Nourmand served as DCD’s Interim COO in 2009 and became an Executive Director in 2011 before his appointment as CEO in February in 2012. During this timehe played a key role setting up joint ventures with UK production companies Matchlight, Rize Television USA and bringing Sequence Post Production into the Group.

     

  • CA Media elevates Rajesh Kamat to Asia Group COO

    CA Media elevates Rajesh Kamat to Asia Group COO

    MUMBAI: After successfully launching CA Media India, Rajesh Kamat has been elevated to Chief Operating Officer (COO) of CA Media, the Asian investment arm of The Chernin Group, LLC (TCG). In his new role, Kamat will relocate to Singapore and report to CA Media Group’s Hong Kong-based CEO Paul Aiello. Core to his new responsibilities, Kamat will provide strategic guidance to the group’s existing portfolio investments in the region. He will also support Aiello in identifying and managing growth opportunities for CA Media in Asia.

     

    Before joining CA Media in 2011, Kamat had launched Viacom18’s Hindi general entertainment channel Colors and made a spectacular success of it.

     

    Both directly and through CA Media, TCG has made significant investments in the U.S., Europe and Asia. CA Media will continue to focus on supporting the growth of its existing portfolio of investments, while seeking to expand its position in India and other important emerging markets in Asia.

     

    Kamat will continue to oversee CA Media operations in India while the senior management team – Vivek Raicha and Rishi Negi – will continue to lead their respective domains, as Head of India Investments and Head of India Investee Operations.

     

    Over the last three years, CA Media India has built a strong portfolio of growth investments in the Indian media and entertainment space, including television and film production, live music events, youth media, digital content, intellectual property and graphic novels. In each investment, CA Media has worked with strong on-the-ground partners and local management teams.

     

    CA Media India’s current investments include strategic stakes in Endemol India, Only Much Louder (OML), Graphic India, and a wholly owned online influencer network, FLUENCE.

     

    Since CA Media’s investment, Endemol India has transformed itself from being principally a non-scripted television content production company to one that is producing content across multiple screens including TV, films and digital. Today, OML is India’s premier music, live events and youth media company, with music festival brands such as NH7. While Graphic India is establishing its position as one of India’s leading character entertainment companies, FLUENCE has already become India’s leading online influencer network, connecting celebrities, consumers and brands to create exciting media properties that can be monetised across various consumer facing digital platforms.

     

    “Given what Rajesh has accomplished with CA Media in India, I am confident in his abilities to take on this expanded regional role for CA Media throughout Asia, we look forward to the contributions he will make,” said CEO CA Media Paul Aiello.

     

    Chairman of The Chernin Group Peter Chernin noted, “As we move into our next phase of growth, it is critical to have a structure that supports our operations and continued expansion plans in Asia. Rajesh’s new expanded role in the region will help the group achieve this objective.”

     

    “Moving from a country role to a region profile is both exciting as well as challenging given the diversity of the key Asian markets and our unique portfolio of assets. I look forward to the challenge ahead,” Kamat said.

     

    Kamat will assume his new role and responsibilities in Singapore starting April 2014.

     

    CA Media was founded in partnership with Paul Aiello in November 2010 with a mandate to build, manage and operate media, entertainment and technology businesses throughout Asia. CA Media is building a regional footprint primarily focused on the region’s dynamic growth markets including India, Indonesia and China.

  • Mindshare elevates R Gowthaman and Sudipto Roy

    Mindshare elevates R Gowthaman and Sudipto Roy

    MUMBAI: In a move to strengthen its hold in market and understanding the ever-changing, technology- driven time, Mindshare has appointed R Gowthaman as chief operating officer and Sudipto Roy as regional chief client officer for Asia Pacific.

     

    Gowthaman will take on the role of COO Asia Pacific after spending a year as chief client officer, APAC and CEO south and south-east Asia. During this time, he was responsible for Mindshare’s key clients across the region and expanding the agency’s services, including the launch of an emerging market activation unit across ASEAN in partnership with Geometry Global.

     

    In his new role as COO, Gowthaman will focus on continued development and delivery of Mindshare’s services to marketers across the marketing value chain – from emerging consumer activation at one end to big data management on the other, and a more effective business model for working with clients.

     

    Gowthaman said, “I am extremely delighted to take on this role. I am especially looking forward to designing and rolling out new work streams that provide Mindshare’s clients with great new opportunities and accelerate sustainable growth of our business. Despite our scale and size, we are increasingly behaving more and more like a start-up – provocative, hungry, adaptive, full of energy all underpinned by a promise to be the agency of the future.”

     

    Roy takes over from Gowthaman as chief client officer Asia Pacific following a two-and-a-half-year stint as managing partner of Client Leadership and Partnerships. During this time, his primary responsibility was to run some of Mindshare’s key accounts including Unilever, Kimberly Clark, Lenovo and others.

     

    In his role as CCO, Roy will focus on growing Mindshare’s relationship with its key clients across Asia Pacific, by creating faster, more agile and adaptive marketing services for them.  Roy will also spearhead creation of a stronger open source collaboration model around Mindshare’s key clients, with relevant partners from WPP as well as other independent companies. Roy will report to Gowthaman in this role.

     

    Mindshare is forging a number of partnership programmes with ‘hot’ companies coming up in emerging economies, in analytics, media technology, e-commerce, B2B, social media, mobile and more, to complement the current global partnerships already in place with Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Yahoo and many others. Roy’s new role focuses on leveraging some of these partnerships to help its clients’ brands be more adaptive to near real time consumer response, and continuously improve the way they use various media platforms to grow their brands.

     

    Commenting on his appointment, Roy said, “I am passionate about our clients’ businesses and how we think about them, so this move is exciting as it enables me to focus on what I really love. I believe we have a great opportunity to drive cutting-edge thinking for Mindshare and our clients, and fundamentally re-imagine how we think about media services while continually raising the standards for how media agencies can drive ROI. I really look forward to this part of the journey.”

     

    Mindshare chairman & CEO for APAC and growth market Ashutosh Srivastava said, “We are privileged to have highly talented people like Gowthaman and Roy stepping into these roles. Over the years, they have developed trusted relationships with our clients, by focusing on what they value most. These roles are incredibly crucial for us at this stage and will help Mindshare continue to lead the industry thinking, and shape its development and growth at an exciting time, where understanding of media, technology and effective data usage are becoming more and more central to brand success.”

     

    Both Roy and Gowthaman’s roles are effective immediately and will be based in Singapore.

  • India-A hotbed for news channels

    India-A hotbed for news channels

    “To improve is to change, to be perfect is to change often.” This quote from Winston Churchill is in my opinion the best way to describe 2013 for the Indian television market scenario and BBC Global News, the parent company of BBC World News and bbc.com.

    Let’s first take a broad look at the changes in the Indian market.  While regulation forced the industry to adopt digitisation, it is commendable that the industry responded and today MSOs have had around 70 to 80 per cent success in seeding STBs in phase I and phase II. Digitisation has happened and is progressing – but at the moment that is only the technical side. Addressability remains a concern. But large changes such as this in markets as humongous and diverse as India are bound to take time. Our outlook is positive and we are hoping that once business models start to take shape, this change will be positive for all stakeholders. But there is no doubt that traditional models are being disrupted. The cable industry will have to look at differentiation, quality of service and value added services to drive revenue growth. The capacity constraint that drove carriage revenues is likely to moderate with digitization. There is demand for niche content. New launches are happening in the super-niche format. The demand for Pay-TV is growing with increase in the availability of premium content. Consumers are willing to pay for HD content. Cable operators have also started offering HD-enabled STBs.

    The other major change is the pattern of consumption of content. Viewing has become personal with the consumer demanding and expecting flexibility in terms of timing, volume of content consumed and place of consumption. Increasing mobile & broadband penetrations and affordability of smarter devices are offering alternative digital distribution platforms. Consumption of live TV on-the-go and catch up TV is on the rise.  All these are very positive changes that signal well for the robust growth of the industry.

    It has also been a year of evolution for BBC Global News. We moved into state of the art brand new studios in the heart of Central London in what is easily the world’s largest and most advanced newsroom. Both in anticipation and in response to audience trends, we have successfully converged our news operations to deliver the best multimedia, multi platform international news. Our improved look on TV, our website, our apps – all these make for a greatly enhanced experience for the consumer. Our new brand campaign ‘Live the Story’ is not just an advertising tool, it is an ethos for the way we approach content and we want to reinforce that message in the market. It is in recognition of this ethos that World News America received an Emmy award for “Best continuing coverage of a news story” for Ian Pannell and Paul Wood’s reports from Syria. And among our many editorial highlights was the 100 women season with Mishal Husain’s exclusive interview with Malala featuring not just on BBC World News but across all BBC platforms domestic and international. Indeed one of the catalysts for 100 Women was the Delhi gang rape attack in December last year.

    It is great to see the audience responding to us. In India, BBC World News has maintained its status as the leading international English news channel among the country’s affluent, influential opinion leaders, business decision makers and frequent international travellers, according to the latest Ipsos PAX survey. BBC World News also beats India’s domestic news channels to take the number one spot amongst the highly desirable, upscale audience.  BBC Global News, including BBC World News and bbc.com is the only news brand across TV, online and mobile to show quarter on quarter growth. Social media is equally important for us to improve our engagement and we continue to achieve important audience milestones on Twitter. @bbcworld now has more than 5 million followers and @bbcbreaking has passed the 8 million follower mark.

    As economics and politics in India become even more interesting with the country entering election mode, we have just announced a season of programmes focusing on India to air in February 2014. India Direct will delve behind the headlines to bring audiences insight on our country as we strive to be significant player on the global stage. The India Direct season will give BBC audiences around the world the opportunity to see everyday life in India. Through programmes like Fast Track, One Square Mile and Working Lives, the BBC’s unrivalled network of journalists explore the issues faced by people here – from the economic opportunities and challenges to living life at every level of society; from its traditions and history to future plans and innovations.  We are looking forward to what promises to be a really insightful coverage of India. We also hope to bring an international perspective to the coverage of the elections. As the world focuses on India, our journalists will also showcase India to the rest of the world with our global coverage.

    The world of media and journalism is very dynamic and India is a vibrant market. We believe that the changes in the media landscape are all positive; we ourselves are steadily progressing in tandem with global trends and certainly have a very positive outlook for India. We believe that the market respects and appreciates our content and that our ability to provide superior international news content on multiple platforms will differentiate us and keep us growing.

    (Preet Dhupar is BBC Global News COO for India. The views expressed in the above article are the author’s personal views)

  • Helios Media elevates Bala Iyengar as COO

    Helios Media elevates Bala Iyengar as COO

    MUMBAI: Helios Media, a specialty services company for the broadcast sector, recently completed two years in operations. And with the television industry undergoing critical developments with digitisation, regulations in inventory management, growth of niche genres and evolving dynamics of how viewers consume entertainment, the media brands are exploring newer avenues for engaging with audiences while advertisers are on a constant search for platforms to maximise reach. Traditional practices are being reviewed and the market is in a constant state of innovation.

     “With the changing social fabric, growth of internet penetration and the change in consumer behaviour, the means to reach the viewer have increased manifold. As we move forward, our focus will be on getting into deeper partnerships with relevant platform creators to enhance the solutions we offer our clients. A TV channel is not just for TVCs anymore, and we will work with them in the overall revenue management space, going beyond traditional commercial inventory. In addition to inventory sales, we have enhanced our teams to include talent in the areas of content syndication, custom events, celebrity management and strategic digital initiatives. To take this scale of operations forward, it’s only natural that Bala steps up to take charge of our complete offering and provide seamless service to our clients”, says Helios Media founder & MD Divya Radhakrishnan.

    Commenting further on his elevated role and plans ahead, Helios Media chief operating officer Bala Iyengar added, “The team has been groomed as idea generators and solutions providers who can offer expert advice on how to connect the advertiser with the audience. And this has helped us bring in the 150+ advertisers on MTunes HD, develop a market strategy for Channel X, exponentially increase the revenue base for FoodFood and set to motion the revenue agenda for FTV India. We will shape ourselves to be the go-to destination for advertisers seeking innovative ways to connect with audiences, and for channels seeking breakthrough strategies to boost revenue.”

    The company was launched with a vision to provide broadcasters with business critical expertise in the areas of revenue management, brand consulting and creative development. And has demonstrated results for brands such as MTunes HD, Channel X, FoodFood and Fashion TV.

  • Contract appoints Monojit Ray as Bengaluru head

    Contract appoints Monojit Ray as Bengaluru head

    MUMBAI: The Bengaluru arm of Contract has got a new head. Monojit Ray has been appointed as the general manager and vice president with immediate effect. He will take charge from Anitha Krishnan who was with the company for 10 years.

    Ray will handle not just the Bengaluru portfolio but also be responsible for the growth of Contract in south India. “Monojit’s diverse advertising and marketing experience of over 18 years, complimented by his entrepreneurial experience makes him an ideal choice for heading the Bengaluru office,” said Contract Advertising COO Rana Barua.

    Prior to this, Ray has worked with Ogilvy, Rediffusion, Radio City, Autocop and Everest. “I think it’s a great opportunity and a challenge to be part of a rejuvenated Contract. The vision that Rana has set for the agency is right up my street. And I sincerely believe that the Bengaluru office will play an extremely important role in achieving that goal. I, for one, am extremely excited to be part of this new journey, and I hope that I will be able to make my team as excited about it as we go along,” said Ray.
    Ray had earlier managed Sachin Tendulkar’s first major advertising assignment with Phillips. He was prominent in launching Tata Teleservices in Hyderabad. He is not new to the IT city, having worked there before. He was also the cricket coach and consultant for the movie Kai Po Che.

  • News should be a paid asset

    News should be a paid asset

    BENGALURU: Whether it’s the political battle that’s unraveling in the country, or it’s a terrorist attack, news always interests people. But is news as interesting as a gossip piece about a celebrity? This and a lot of other points were raised at the first day of the FICCI MEBC (Media and Entertainment Business Conclave) that saw a session that discussed the news genre. The discussion brought up several points including viewership data, content that is being broadcast and the current situation of the genre as a whole.

     

    The panellists included BBC World News India COO Preet Dhupar, Udayvani group editor Ravi Hegde, Suvarna News editor Anantha Chinivar, Former CNN IBN journalist Veeraraghav, columnist Aakar Patel, NDTV resident editor Maya Sharma and IIM Bangalore dean Dr S Raghunath. The session was moderated by journalist Prakash Belawadi.

     

    After the entire discussion, the panelists concluded that the genre relies heavily on advertising, thus restricting the kind of content that can be produced. At the same time, viewership data such as TAM (Television Audience Measurement) is needed because advertisers depend on such data to pool their money where they want to. “Producing news is expensive and that is why all channels have panel discussions in their primetime slot. It is cheaper than sending an OB van to some far off place and spend huge amount,” said Sharma.

     

    Another point brought up during the discussion was about “sensationalising news”. The reason why many times news is sensationalised is because entertainment is more prominent than news. So, news journalists need to adapt to the entertainment form of style in order to grab eyeballs. But at the same time just getting viewers will not help because everyone is also looking for credibility of news, including the people watching it and the ones dispersing the news. Channels keep a close watch on other channels to know what they are reporting.

     

    However, Hegde differed as he remarked that “media was not entertainment but a serious job”. Hegde, who comes from a print background, said that it’s a newspaper’s job to clear the confusion that channels have created the previous night for the viewers.

     

    Talking about the revenue generated through advertising, Hegde said that most of the advertisements to newspapers come for the editions in the metros, making it difficult to distribute papers in the rural areas.

     

    To this, Chinivar pointed that in order to beat entertainment news, the need to sensationalise news comes up.

     

    Columnist Patel thinks that the standard of journalism in India is poor because of lack of good training and low salaries.

     

    Veeraghav brought to fore the speculative nature of the Indian viewers that the channels have to continuously face. He remarked how many people question news channels’ nature to delve into the future, but they always want to know the future not what has happened. “If I tell a viewer that elections are going to happen, the first thing he will ask me is can you tell me who is going to win?” he said.

     

    Although many channels have taken a strong stand against the TAM accusing it of fudging data to benefit advertisers, all the panellists agreed that there needs to be some kind of tracking to know the viewership for channels and newspapers because it is ultimately a business.

     

    The fact that news is free is what makes it so volatile. “When you have to pay for your news, it will be taken seriously and that’s when the kind of news you get will also become better,” said Sharma. With digitisation coming in, they hope that some system will come in to place to help them get more revenues. News will become a paid asset in the future. “As long as news is free you cannot live without TAM or IRS,” Veerraghav ended.

  • Sony Six appoints Neo’s Prasana Krishnan as Business Head

    Sony Six appoints Neo’s Prasana Krishnan as Business Head

    MUMBAI: In an early morning announcement, former COO of Neo Sports Broadcast Prasana Krishnan has been brought into MSM’s sports channel Sony Six as their new Business Head. Krishnan was also previously associated with Nimbus Media, Times of India and Arthur Andersen.

    Talking about this new development MSM India COO N P Singh says, “We are optimistic that Prasana’s appointment will further strengthen and grow Sony Six’s position in what can be called as one of the most competitive broadcasting markets in the world. We look forward to a long and fruitful working association with him.”
    Prasanna Krishnan is confident that the channel will grow consistently to the leadership position in this space

    Prasana, who is delighted about his new role with Sony Six, says “I look forward to take up this challenging role and work towards ensuring that the channel grows consistently to the leadership position in this space.” Krishnan has over 17 years of experience in the media and consulting sectors.

    In 2006, Krishnan joined Neo Sports and in 2009 was elevated to chief operating officer.

  • Chinta Shyamsundar returns as CEO of Asianet News Network

    Chinta Shyamsundar returns as CEO of Asianet News Network

    BENGALURU: Chinta Shyamsundar will return as CEO of Asianet News Network (ANN) to steer Rajeev Chandrashekar-promoted Jupiter Media & Entertainment Venture’s (JMEV) news business following the exit of Suresh Selvaraj.

     

    Shyamsundar is currently serving as the Director of JMEV, a subsidiary of Jupiter Capital Venture.

     

    An MBA in Finance, Shyamsundar has been with JMEV for almost four years working in various capacities like CEO, CFO and COO. Infact he was Executive Director and CEO of ANN till February, 2012.

     

    His responsibilities at JMEV included value creation and acceleration for all media and entertainment ventures including regional news channels (Suvarna News 24×7, Asianet News), regional Print Media (Kannada), FM radio channels 91.9 (Bangalore, Goa & Kerala), and live music (Indigo Music).

     

    As reported earlier by Indiantelevision.com, Suresh Selvaraj whom Shyamsundar now replaces, had quit the company as CEO and executive director of ANN after spending almost a year at the company. He had joined ANN in February 2012 from Outlook Group, where he spent almost 13 years.

     

    Selvaraj’s last day at ANN was 29 March.

     

    JMEV owns and operates Kannada news channel Suvarna News 24×7 and Malayalam news channel Asianet News. The company also owns and operates radio brands including Best FM and Radio Indigo.

  • Graphic India appoints Salil Bhargava as COO

    Graphic India appoints Salil Bhargava as COO

    MUMBAI: Graphic India, a character entertainment company, has appointed former Jump Games CEO Salil Bhargava as Chief Operating Officer (COO). The company is focused on creating leading characters, comics and stories for the Indian youth market through mobile and digital platforms.

    Bhargava, an veteran in the industry and brings more than twelve years of experience in media, entertainment and digital companies in India and overseas, will report to Sharad Devarajan, Co-Founder and CEO of Graphic India.

    CA Media, the Asian investment arm of The Chernin Group, had acquired an undisclosed large minority stake in Graphic India in January this year.

    Commenting on the new appointment, Graphic India Co-Founder & CEO Sharad Devarajan said, “Salil has been a leading force in pioneering India‘s mobile entertainment industry over the last decade and I am delighted to bring his experience to Graphic as we build a digital media company that transforms the Indian character entertainment industry with new heroes and stories to inspire the world.”

    Commenting on his appointment, Bhargava said, “I am thrilled to be joining Graphic India which is setting new boundaries in creativity for character entertainment in India. Sharad and his team bring an unparalleled level of experience in this space and there cannot be a more exciting company to work with as we pioneer digital initiatives to make Graphic‘s unique and ground breaking content available across every digital device in the country.”

    Salil has a Bachelors Degree in Commerce from Symbiosis College of Arts & Commerce, Pune. He has studied at Michigan State University in USA and holds an MBA degree from Eli Broad Graduate School of Management.

    Graphic India‘s stories include, Ramayan 3392A.D. and The Sadhu, both currently in development as Hollywood feature films; 18 Days, a reimagining of the great eastern epic, the Mahabharata, by acclaimed graphic novel creator, Grant Morrison; Chakra The Invincible, the first superhero for India from legendary creator Stan Lee; and numerous other heroes and stories.