GECs
All new shows on Star this year
MUMBAI: Star India is all set to flag off the new year with a host of new shows on its English entertainment channels, Star World and Star World Premiere.
Starting this month, Star World Premiere, will air the all-new American cyber-themed action-adventure series, Intelligence, which stars Josh Holloway as Gabriel Vaughn, a hi-tech intelligence operative with a supercomputer microchip lodged in his brain.
A new-age super soldier, Gabriel can hack into any data centre and access critical intelligence to protect the US from its enemies. Intelligence also stars Marg Helgenberger as head of the government cyber security agency supporting Gabriel and Meghan Ory as Secret Service Agent.
Come February, the channel is expected to telecast a new comedy-drama titled Rake, which sees Greg Kinnear as criminal defence lawyer Keegan Deane whose personal problems threaten to turn his entire world upside down.
Apart from the new shows, the latest season of American Horror Story: Coven will also air on Star World Premiere. Having debuted in October last year, the anthology series features different characters and locations, including a haunted house, a mental asylum and a witch coven. The upcoming season revolves round themes such as oppression, witchcraft and voodoo. With actors the likes of Kathy Bates and Jessica Lange, the series has won both critical and commercial acclaim.
Not to be left behind, Star World will telecast a new comedy-drama Bunheads starring Sutton Foster as Michelle Simms, a Las Vegas showgirl who gets married on impulse, only to end up in small town California, where she teaches ballet alongside her mother-in-law, Fanny Flowers, reprised by Kelly Bishop.
Also airing on the channel will be the first and second seasons of Suburgatory, a series that follows the life of George Altman (Jeremy Sisto), a single dad from New York who moves upstate to the suburbs in search of a better life for his daughter Tessa (Jane Levy). This apart, Star World will telecast new seasons of old favourites like Melissa & Joey starring Melissa Joan Hart and Joey Lawrence as the main protagonists.
Exults Star India general manager English channels Kevin Vaz: “We’ve got some great shows scheduled to air in the New Year. We will be showing new seasons of a few old favorites as well as some brand new shows. 2014 is going to see some excellent television content from the Star Network.”
While Star World has been around for long now, Star World Premiere, which was launched only in September last year, has already taken TV viewers by storm with its dynamic content.
The channel is a pioneering initiative by the Star Network to present brand new content to Indian audiences with the latest episodes of their favorite shows broadcasting simultaneously in the US. So, viewers can watch all the popular shows as they air in the west, without having to wait for the latest episodes.
GECs
ZEEL overhauls sales structure to chase growth across TV and digital platforms
New structure sharpens digital push as viewing habits fragment fast
MUMBAI: Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. is reshuffling its sales playbook as it looks to keep pace with a fast-changing media landscape, where audiences are scattered, screens are multiplying and advertisers are following the data.
According to media reports, the rejig is anchored in the company’s push to build a more integrated, data-led monetisation engine, one that can straddle both traditional television and fast-growing digital platforms with equal ease.
At the heart of the move is a reworked sales architecture designed to deliver cross-platform solutions. With connected TV gaining ground and digital consumption surging, ZEEL is aligning its teams to move quicker, think broader and sell smarter.
The restructuring is being led by chief operating officer, advertisement revenue, Sandeep Mehrotra, at a time when the company says it is seeing tremendous growth. The idea is simple: match the right talent to the right opportunity in a market that is anything but static.
As part of the overhaul, several long-serving executives have been elevated to chief sales officer roles across regions and content clusters. Sanjoy Chatterjee will head the east market, while Gunjarav Nayak takes charge of the west along with high-margin verticals such as hmg, brand works, intellectual properties and digital sales. Rajnish Gupta will oversee bengaluru and chennai markets alongside the kannada and tamil clusters.
In other key moves, Divjyot Dhanda will lead hyderabad and kochi markets and manage zee tv, zee keralam and the telugu cluster. Roshan Vasu Kotian will supervise a diverse portfolio including Zee Marathi, &tv, Zee Punjabi, Zee Anmol, Big Magic and Zee Biskope.
The company is also strengthening its bench, appointing national sales heads across retail, regional clusters, digital and brand solutions. Ankur Kapila’s appointment to lead digital sales signals a sharper push into a segment that continues to outpace traditional formats.
Behind the scenes, dedicated strategy and operations roles have been carved out for both linear and digital businesses. Nitin Shetty, Rajkiran Shrivastav and Priya Nambiar will take on key responsibilities to ensure the new structure runs with precision.
The broader aim is clear. ZEEL wants a bigger slice of advertising budgets that are steadily drifting towards digital and connected TV ecosystems. By integrating its offerings, the company hopes to deepen client relationships while unlocking new revenue streams.
The new structure takes effect immediately, with Mehrotra continuing to report to chief executive officer Punit Goenka and steer the company’s advertising revenue strategy. Senior executive Laxmi Shetty will support the transition, with her revised role expected to be announced soon.
In a market where content is everywhere but attention is scarce, ZEEL’s latest move is less about rearranging the org chart and more about staying in the game.
