Rajiv Rajaram named head of content at Sun NXT

CHENNAI: Sun TV Network has pulled off a rather sharp hire for its streaming arm, bringing Rajiv Rajaram on board as head of content at Sun NXT. It is the kind of appointment that rewards a closer look, because Rajaram is not merely a content executive changing addresses, he is something closer to Tamil digital media’s own institutional memory, arriving with 21 years of scar tissue and successes spanning streaming, digital, film, radio, television and advertising.

The résumé reads like a tour of the platforms that shaped Tamil digital content over the past two decades. Rajaram joins Sun NXT straight from Sony Pictures Networks India, where he spent two and a half years as head of content, Tamil, for Sony LIV, steering the platform’s regional slate from March 2023 to August 2025. Before that, he built his reputation the hard way at Culture Machine Studios, later Rainshine Studios, rising from senior creative director, south, to vice president of content and originals across nearly eight years, a stretch that produced Meme Boys, Sony LIV’s first ever Tamil original series.

What makes Rajaram genuinely distinctive, though, is the digital media brand he built from scratch. As co-founder of Put Chutney, he created what became one of Tamil digital media’s most recognisable names, pioneering formats like South Indianized Trailers, which racked up over 80 million views, and Laughter Games, YouTube’s branded web series format that put Tamil sketch comedy on a national stage. He also co-founded Stray Factory, a Chennai based collaborative entertainment venture that toured acclaimed live shows across 24 cities in six countries, proof that his instinct for original IP extends well beyond the screen.

There is a performer buried in the executive too, and it is not incidental to his hiring. Rajaram is a fourth generation radio professional and voice artist with more than 3,500 commercials to his name, and he starred in Detective Mathimaran, Spotify’s first Tamil original series. Add screenwriting credits on bilingual films such as Moone Moonu Varthai and dialogue writing for Yash Raj Films’ first Tamil production, Aaha Kalyanam, and what emerges is an executive who has sat on every side of the content table, as writer, performer, brand builder and now, commissioner.

For Sun TV Network, the timing of this hire says plenty about where the group’s ambitions lie. Sun NXT has long been a strong regional player, but the streaming wars in the south are intensifying, with platforms racing to lock in original IP that can travel beyond a single language market. Rajaram’s proven ability to build viral, youth-skewing digital brands from nothing, paired with his content commissioning experience at two of India’s biggest streaming platforms, gives Sun NXT a leader who understands both the craft of storytelling and the cold arithmetic of what actually gets watched.

It is a hire that positions Sun NXT to compete more aggressively for Tamil original content, and given Rajaram’s track record of turning modest budgets into cultural moments, this is one appointment worth watching closely over the next year.