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Promax&BDA India conference to be held on 11-12 July
MUMBAI: The Promax&BDA India conference 2005 will be held at the JW Marriott Hotel in Mumbai on 11 – 12 July.
The theme for the conference this year is – ‘The Sticky Stuff: Applying New Glue Between Viewers, Ratings And Revenues.’
As India moves into an era of alternative delivery platforms, with direct-to-home (DTH) television and mobile telephony, Promax&BDA will dwell on the areas that will keep the viewers glued no matter what.
The speakers at this year’s Promax&BDA include: ABC Network, USA senior vice president marketing Mike Benson, Channel [V] head honcho Amar Deb, McCann Erickson India president Santosh Desai, Bruce Dunlop & Associates, UK chairman Bruce Dunlop, Sony Entertainment Television, India business head Tarun Katial, Ink Project, Australia co-founder and creative director Ken Lambert, Kemistry, UK creative head and founding partner Graham McCallum, Comedy Central, USA vice president, on-air design Kendrick Reid, UTV Group, India founder CEO Ronnie Screwvala and Nickelodeon Asia, Singapore senior director, creative and show development Garry Sinclair.
MAM
Sameer Nair shares heartfelt note as he exits Applause Entertainment
After nine years building the streamer’s content engine, one of India’s best-known TV men is moving on
MUMBAI: Sameer Nair is out. The chief executive of Applause Entertainment, the content studio backed by Kumar Mangalam Birla’s media empire, has announced his departure after nearly nine years at the helm, closing the chapter on one of Indian entertainment’s more quietly consequential careers.
Nair, who built Applause from the ground up in its current avatar, oversaw a slate that spanned Indian originals and international adaptations, threading together a hub-and-spoke business model that partnered with streaming platforms, broadcasters and production houses alike. The results were uneven, as they always are in content, but the ambition was not.
In a post on LinkedIn, Nair was generous to his outgoing patron. He thanked Birla for being an “inspirational boss and a great patron of the arts,” and signed off with a cheerful “Au Revoir” and a promise to remain Applause’s biggest cheerleader. Whether that sentiment survives the next chapter remains to be seen.
No successor has been named. Applause Entertainment did not immediately comment.
Nair built the machine. Now someone else has to run it — and in a streaming market that is simultaneously consolidating and convulsing, that is no small ask.







