MUMBAI: Viacom18’s national brands aimed at youth and the adult audience, viz. Hindi, youth, music and English entertainment under the leadership of Viacom18 COO Raj Nayak, has announced a rejig of its business and revenue leadership team.
Namrata Tata, who was responsible for ad sales for English entertainment, will now take on the new and expanded role of head, ad sales – youth, music and English entertainment.
Mandar Natekar, who was earlier heading Ad Sales – Youth and Music, will be moving into a business role and will be responsible for one of the newest ventures of the network, the MTV Music Project.
Both Namrata Tata and Mandar Natekar will continue reporting into Ferzad Palia.
Speaking on the management restructuring, Nayak said, “With the recent consolidation of Hindi, Youth, Music and English Entertainment clusters, Viacom18 is carving out anidentity for itself in the ecosystem that cohesively speaks to adults, youth and millennials, and create opportunities that are multi-dimensional and multi-platform. Namrata and Mandar have been instrumental to the success of the youth, music and English entertainment genres and as we look to dial up synergies and expand to capture white spaces within the genres, they are best suited to support Ferzad in further strengthening our influence in these genres.”
Under Mandar’s leadership, the MTV Music Project will nurture an ecosystem of new and established artistes and create original music content. Namrata, who has been associated with Viacom18 for the past 6 years and has been instrumental in growing the revenues of the English Entertainment unit will now oversee sales revenue for the consolidated cluster of Youth, Music and English Entertainment.
Speaking about the role expansions, Viacom 18 Youth, Music and English Entertainment head Ferzad Palia said, “In an increasingly dynamic environment, these genres need to look beyond traditional avenues to dial up growth. As a network, our leadership plays in the Youth, Music and English Entertainment genres have set the ground for us to explore synergies within them to dial up revenues. Namrata, with her understanding of the genres particularly and broadcast as a whole, is well equipped to lead the charge for maximizing the revenue opportunities for these related business units. Mandar, with his nuanced understanding of the youth and music genre – both from content and revenue POVs, is best suited to lead the MTV Music Project, as we look to explore our latest business opportunity in this genre. I am confident that we can further dial up our plays across these wide set of brands and solutions in this space.”
