Shemaroo Entertainment announced the appointment of Sandeep Gupta as COO – broadcasting business. This announcement comes at a time as the company announced its strategic entry into broadcast business with two channel launches – Shemaroo TV, the flagship Hindi GEC and the Marathi movie channel Shemaroo MarathiBana, launch. With this move, Shemaroo will consolidate its entire broadcast offerings under the leadership of Gupta.
Speaking on his appointment Gupta shared, “Shemaroo is an established and homegrown name in the entertainment industry, entertaining consumers from the last 57 years. The company is constantly experimenting and tapping into many new businesses, and has always disrupted the archaic norms. It’s an exciting time to be a part of such a dynamic team at Shemaroo, while embracing the culture and bringing the best to the vision and leadership. I look forward to working with the teams here, and make significant contribution by making the category a household name.”
Gupta has played an instrumental role in Shemaroo’s entry into the broadcast business to power its next growth phase. Before joining Shemaroo Entertainment, he has been the India CFO and COO – broadcasting business at B4U Television Network India Limited, where he played a significant role in scaling up and turning around the broadcasting business with improved market credibility and brand image, along with a couple of television channel launches.
Commenting on strengthening of the leadership team, Shemaroo Entertainment CEO Hiren Gada said, “Shemaroo’s DNA has been to constantly evolve with the changing times and pre-empt market shifts and adopt unconventional approaches for an accelerated growth. Our endeavor has always been to build a future ready organisation with distinct capabilities and a distinctive culture with an emphasis on developing internal talent. This new structure will power us as we enter our next growth phase.” While congratulating Gupta on the appointment, he said, “Sandeep is one of those rare leaders in our industry who possess a sharp business acumen coupled with great insights on the pulse of the audiences. I am confident that he will be able to take our television offerings to greater heights as he leverages his experience of successfully building large scale television businesses.”
Shemaroo also announced key appointments and restructuring to focus on the broadcast business.
Deputy vice president Subhash Somani has helped scale Shemaroo DTH VAS business to newer heights and will now take additional charge of Shemaroo TV. Somani will oversee the entire business for Shemaroo TV – content production and planning and channel distribution among others. He comes with a rich experience of 10 years in the media sector, where he has driven business strategies, alliances and partnerships along with content production and other building block functions for many organizations. Prior to making a move to Shemaroo, Somani was associated with Videocon d2h.
Assistant vice president Vivek Koka, who heads the Bollywood category will now be given additional responsibility of leading the Marathi Movie channel Shemaroo MarathiBana. As a business professional of 17 years, Koka has varied experience across broadcasting, DTH and telecom. In his last assignment, he led the marketing function for channels such as &pictures, &pictures HD, Zee Classic and Zee Anmol. Prior to Zee, he worked with leading brands such as Tata Sky and Tata Docomo handling leadership roles across key strategic functions.
With a clear focus in the broadcast business, its agenda will be led by some of the finest minds in the television space and hence on the programming front Shemaroo has announced key hires.
Programming head Rakesh Jain will be responsible for the programming and creative development of the Hindi GEC, Shemaroo TV and will work closely with the team to strengthen the channel’s position. He comes with over 18 years of experience in the media space where he has led the programming teams from inception stage and launched two successful Hindi GEC. He has also been instrumental in creating channel driver properties for Star group, ZEE group and Turner group from the broadcasting ecosystem.
Deputy general manager Yojana Bahalkar Bhave will lead programming for Marathi movie channel, Shemaroo MarathiBana. She comes with over 15 years of experience in the GEC and non-GEC space and has worked with leading brands like Zee Talkies, Colors Marathi, 9X Media, Music India, ETV Marathi and more. She was instrumental in launching 9X Jhakaas, first Marathi music channel and revamping of Zee Talkies. Bhave has vast experience in non-fiction programming and has worked on various TV show formats like music shows, reality shows, adventure and youth shows, multi-entertainment television shows and film award shows.
Both the progamming leads bring on board an in-depth experience and a strong understanding of content curation that will be crucial in developing the broadcast portfolio for the company. With these new hires, Shemaroo has elevated the entertainment quotient for their newly launched Shemaroo TV and its audiences.
Shemaroo is all set for a new innings in the broadcast space and has laced itself with all the ingredients required to be the top choice of the viewers.
