News Broadcasting
DD hopes Vijay Jindal will bring in marketing muscle
NEW DELHI: In what is termed a bid to strengthen its marketing efforts, national broadcaster Doordarshan has brought in former Zee Telefilms CEO Vijay Jindal to head its newly constituted marketing advisory committee.
The committee will be headquartered in New Delhi and will have Jindal as chairman, with Sunit Duggal, Jagdeep Bakshi, Murad Ali Baig, Roda Mehta, Satish Mehta as the other marketing / advertising experts on the committee. The Doordarshan deputy director general (commercial) and deputy director-general (audience research) will also be on the committee with DD’s director (commercial) as the convener of the committee.
The committee is supposed to make recommendations to the director-general on various issues and policies relating to marketing of Doordarshan and its positioning in the competitive broadcasting field The committee will meet from time to time and give suggestions on evolving an effective marketing strategy for Doordarshan. It will also evolve a framework for positioning of DD Channels as a brand and advise on effective advertising and publicity campaigns, a Prasar Bharati release states.
DD must be hoping the 44-year-old former Zee bossman and Times Group CEO, who is an organisational and management whiz, with a good handle on corporate finances, and has proved his mettle as an entrepreneur, will be able reshape the pubcaster, and give it that chutzpah needed to compete in a multichannel environment.
In recent years, Doordarshan has been placing enormous importance on marketing of its programmes. It has already set up marketing divisions in Mumbai (2000), Chennai (2001) and Bangalore (2002). These units market programmes produced, owned or acquired by Doordarshan. Nearly a third of the programmes on the National Network and half of the programmes on the regional service are produced in house by the Doordarshan Kendras. Plans are afoot to open marketing offices in Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Thiruvananthapuram also in the near future.
DD has already set up a creative advisory committee under the chairmanship of Alyque Padamsee.
News Broadcasting
Rajesh Sundaram joins NDTV Profit as senior editor, assignment
The 32-year newsroom veteran has launched channels on three continents and covered everything from 9/11 to South African television
MUMBAI: NDTV Profit has bolstered its newsroom with a hire who has done rather more than most. Rajesh Sundaram, a journalist with over three decades of editorial, managerial and consultative experience across India and international markets, joins as senior editor, assignment, tasked with sharpening the network’s newsgathering and real-time response.
Sundaram’s career reads like a tour of Indian media’s most formative moments. He began at Businessworld in 1994, moved to Zee News as bureau chief across Mumbai and Chennai, then joined NDTV in 2002 as part of its political bureau during a particularly febrile period in Indian politics. A stint as India correspondent for Al Jazeera International followed, where he covered key geopolitical developments and got his first serious taste of the global newsroom.
What sets Sundaram apart, however, is his serial channel-launching habit. At NewsX, he helped get the operation off the ground. At Headlines Today, part of the India Today Group, he served as editor. At News Nation, he helped launch the Hindi news channel and its digital ecosystem. He then crossed continents to lead the launch of ANN7 in South Africa as editor-in-chief, overseeing both television and digital. Back in India, he launched Tamil news channels News7 Tamil and Cauvery News, and later served as principal consultant for the launch of Marathi channel Lokshahi. Most recently, he helped build and lead the Press Trust of India’s video service and content studio, before stints consulting for Business Today and The Himalayan Times.
Rahul Kanwal, chief executive and editor-in-chief of NDTV, left little doubt about what Sundaram is expected to deliver. “The assignment desk is where a newsroom’s intent becomes action,” he said. “Rajesh brings a rare combination of field experience and leadership in building news operations at scale.”
Sundaram has reported from across India and the world, covering elections, civil conflicts, the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and the 2008 US presidential election.
At NDTV Profit, he will lead the assignment desk, driving editorial coordination and real-time response across markets and breaking developments. For a business news network sharpening its focus on speed and multi-platform delivery, it has hired a man who has built newsrooms from scratch on three continents. The assignment desk is in good hands.
