Rohit Gupta, executive V-P sales and revenue management, has been given additional charge as channel and business head of AXN and HBO. Directly reporting to Gupta is V-P programming and production Nachiket Pantvaidya, who has been shifted to ad sales and redesignated V-P sales and marketing English channels.

Pantvaidya will be coordinating ad sales activities for both HBO and AXN, Gupta said. Rohit Bhandari, assistant V-P - sales and marketing, who is responsible for managing AXN's business interests in India, will continue to do so.

Regarding the changes that Pantvaidya's shift from the programming side would entail, SET channel business head Sunil Lulla was unavailable for comment, despite efforts by indiantelevision.com to contact him. From the looks of things it appears though that Lulla will directly be leading all new programming initiatives, assisted principally by SET director on air programming Anupama Mandloi.

Effective 1 January, 2003, SET India will manage the advertising sales for HBO and distribute the service through its SET/Discovery One Alliance joint venture in India and the Maldives.

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