Om Pathre quits JioStar, joins Rusk Media as GM revenue management

MUMBAI: Om Pathre has jumped ship, and the destination tells its own story. The executive has left JioStar, the broadcasting behemoth born of the Reliance-Disney merger, to become general manager, revenue management at Rusk Media, a firm planted firmly in the world of creators and digital content. The move, made in July 2026, marks a deliberate pivot away from legacy television and towards the messier, faster-moving business of new-age media.

For nearly four years, Pathre was embedded deep in the machinery of Indian sports broadcasting. He joined Disney Star in August 2022 as part of the product and revenue strategy team for emerging sports, before moving into customer analytics for sports in August 2023. When Disney Star merged with Reliance’s Viacom18 to form JioStar, Pathre transitioned smoothly, taking on the role of assistant manager, network strategy, insights and analytics for entertainment in August 2025, and was promoted to manager within four months. His work spanned consumer insights, strategy and monetization, giving him a ringside view of some of the thorniest problems in broadcasting economics, from audience measurement to sports rights monetisation.

That pedigree makes his exit notable. Star Sports and JioStar Entertainment represent the old guard of Indian media: appointment viewing, cable bundles and cricket rights worth billions of rupees. Rusk Media represents the opposite bet, one on creators, short-form content and the algorithmic attention economy that has been quietly eating into broadcast television’s share of eyeballs and ad budgets for years.

Pathre himself is candid about the adjustment. A little over a month into the new role, he admits there has already been plenty to learn, and unlearn. That unlearning is the interesting bit. Revenue management in broadcasting relies on decades-old playbooks: rate cards, upfront deals, GRPs. Revenue management in the creator economy is a different animal altogether, built on brand deals, platform algorithms and audience data that shifts by the hour rather than the season. Getting one discipline to inform the other, without simply importing broadcast logic wholesale, will be the real test of this move.

His career arc before JioStar also suggests a pattern of restlessness rather than drift. Pathre spent over three years at Shemaroo Entertainment, rising from management trainee to manager of content and programming strategy for its regional brand, Shemaroo MarathiBana, between 2019 and 2022. Earlier still, he cut his teeth in advertising and events, with stints at Triton Communications, McCann Worldgroup and a self-started venture, My Mithaiwala, where he handled marketing and brand-building from scratch. That entrepreneurial streak, paired with analytics chops honed at two of India’s largest media houses, positions him well for a business like Rusk Media, where the lines between content, commerce and data are blurring fast.

The broader signal here is one worth watching. As linear television’s economics come under pressure from streaming and short-form platforms, talent that once built careers inside broadcast giants is increasingly flowing towards the creator economy instead. Pathre’s move, from a company managing India’s biggest sporting properties to one betting on the next generation of digital-first content, is a small but telling data point in that shift. Onwards and upwards, as he puts it, but in a distinctly different direction.