MAM
Mruci strengthens India leadership; appoints S Sinha & S Gupta as new members on the board
Mumbai: Media Research Users Council India (Mruci) held its 28th annual general meeting (AGM) on Tuesday via video conferencing.
Mediabrands CEO – India Shashidhar Sinha and Jagran Prakashan director Shailesh Gupta will continue in their respective roles as chairman and vice chairman of Mruci.
The leadership duo was unanimously re-elected at Mruci’s board meeting, which was held shortly after its AGM.
Maruti Suzuki India’s senior executive director of marketing & sales Shashank Srivastava and TV Today Network group chief marketing officer & COO of consumer revenue Vivek Malhotra have also been added to the board of governors as new members.
Speaking of his appointment, Sinha stated, “With Covid behind us and the industry back to normal, we should hopefully start work on the new IRS shortly.”
Adding to this, Gupta commented, “These are interesting times for research. With markets and businesses returning to normalcy, research will play a huge role in enabling business decisions. Mruci is well poised to enter the next phase of research, which will be increasingly powered by better use of technology that will power business, media, and marketing decisions.”
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.
