News Broadcasting
Radio City strenghtens workforce; appoints Mumbai, Chennai station heads
MUMBAI: Music Broadcast Pvt. Ltd (MBPL) owned Radio City has, as part of its overall growth plans in the second phase of FM expansion, aggressively expanded its workforce recruiting over 70 professionals in the last 70 days.
The appointments have been made across all levels in the sales, marketing, programming and technical departments. The two top-level recruitments have been Krishna Iyer and Madhusudhan who have been appointed as the station heads for Mumbai and Chennai respectively.
An MBA from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Iyer comes from the advertising industry, having worked with agencies such as Lowe, Enterprise Nexus and JWT over the last 14 years. The company claims that Iyer’s skills and expertise in working with creative teams will help Radio City, Mumbai retain its leadership position in the FM space and further strengthen and drive its innovative content and communication platform.
Madhusudhan has over 10 years experience in organisations like ANP Sanmarg Life Insurance, Idea Cellular and HCL-Nokia. He will be instrumental in Radio City’s launch in Chennai.
Amidst this recruitment drive, Radio City Delhi and Lucknow vice president and station head Amritendu Roy, has put in his papers citing personal reasons after a two-year stint at Radio City.
Under his stewardship, Radio City Delhi consolidated its listenership and increased it to over two million in Delhi and the NCR. He also spearheaded major content innovations and interactive station promotions in Delhi. According to an official release, his stint at Radio City Lucknow has helped strengthen Radio City’s Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives by furthering private-public partnerships to support various causes.
Radio City national HR head Ashish Gharde said, “Radio City aims to be the best employer in the media industry. Our recent recruitment drive has been phenomenal and also a huge challenge, especially due to the limited talent available within the radio space and the dynamic situation in the media industry. In such a scenario, we had to look outside and I am glad that we have been largely successful in putting together a talented team across all our stations. Retention is also a key issue and we have initiated measures to retain and upgrade skills of key personnel within Radio City. Having said that, Amrit’s decision to leave will be a setback for us and surely he’ll be missed.”
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.
