The revenue bosses of TV news

The TV news industry has some key leaders in their marketing and sales teams who have been driving the growth of the medium despite myriad challenges.

Today we feature leaders in the domain who have been prominent faces for the country’s news broadcasters.

Times News Network

Gaurav Dhawan
Chief Revenue Officer

Gaurav Dhawan spearheads the Network’s broadcast ad revenue operations and drives monetization strategy for the bouquet of channels across Hindi and English news, entertainment, and branded content. Part of the core team that launched TIMES NOW in 2005, Gaurav is a Times Network stalwart, who has played a pivotal role in shaping the brand’s market leadership and has been passionately involved in scaling revenue and new opportunities through his tenure with the network. With an illustrious career spanning over 26 years in the media and entertainment sector, Gaurav holds a demonstrated history of driving businesses to profitability, impacting solutions and innovation to deliver aggressive revenue expectations and sustained growth for businesses across Television, Print and Web.

India Today (TV Today Network)

Income from advertisement and other related operations FY 22: Rs 852.54 cr overall

Total Revenue: Rs 930.1 cr (TV Today Network Consolidated- net sales 31st March ‘22) 
Source: BSE 

Rahul Kumar Shaw
CEO, Television and Radio Business

Rahul Kumar Shaw has been working with TV Today Network Limited for more than nine years. He was the Chief Operating Officer (COO) for the Television business before getting re-designated as the CEO of the Television and Radio business in 2021. Shaw has an experience of over 25 years in the business of advertising across Print, Television, Radio & Sports Management and has worked with Turner International India Pvt. Ltd; SET India Pvt. Ltd.; Star India Pvt. Ltd.; NDTV Imagine; INX Media; and Zee Entertainment. While his formative years were spent with Bennett Coleman and Co Ltd., specialising in selling advertising solutions in Print media, the second act of his career saw him traversing across a variety of genres in TV - premium English Movies, English Entertainment, Mass General Entertainment, Hindi Movies, International News, Kids Entertainment, Niche Hindi General Entertainment, Premium English News Channel, Sports Business, Hindi News Channels, Regional Channel, and Events.

Key Individual:

Salil Kumar, CEO, Digital, India Today

Aaj Tak became the First TV news channel to cross 20 million subscribers on YouTube.

ABP Network

Estimated Revenue: Rs 700 cr for FY22

Mona Jain
Chief Revenue Officer, ABP Network

A new-age leader, Mona Jain joined the ABP Network in 2019. In the past, she was associated with Zee Entertainment Enterprise Ltd. (ZEEL) for six years, where she served as Executive Vice President, AD Sales, and has a proven track record of 30 years in media marketing, and promotions. Prior to ZEEL, Jain was the CEO of Vivaki Exchange for almost 9 years, where she was designated as the India Head – Strategic Investments. She has also worked at Cheil Communications and Mudra Communications, where she held the positions of Executive Director and Media Director respectively. She started her career with Hindustan Thompson Associates (HTA), and holds vast experience in the fields of communications and marketing.

"Some of my key successes at ABP Network include handling of the COVID situation, and to ensure that the Network’s revenue was protected. I was able to maximize and garner a fair share of the money that was available in the market. Yet another success I would say was to catapult Digital revenue manifold - especially revenue coming in from direct content-led solutions. I was also responsible for strengthening the content-led solution on all language channels to provide a contextual opportunity for brands to engage with their consumers in a far more integrated manner.” 

Today ABP News, ABP Majha, ABP Ananda, ABP Asmita, ABP Desam, ABP Ganga, ABP Sanjha, and ABP Nadu are also actively reporting news digitally.

NDTV

Estimated Advertising Revenue: Rs 344.54 cr (consolidated) for FY22 

Rachit Tiwary
National Business Head

Rachit Tiwary rejoined NDTV in 2022. Prior to this, he was associated with NDTV from 2012-2017. Before his second stint with NDTV, he was leading Republic World’s R Fluid as the Business Head. This was in continuation to his role as the Director of Brand Solutions at Republic Media Network.

Key individual

Rajesh Kumar
Global Head - Ad Sales and Monetization

MMTv

PR Satheesh
CEO, MMTv

PR Satheesh joined MMTv in 2014 as Head - Sales and Marketing and has been associated with the organization for more than seven years. He was elevated to the post of CEO in 2021.

Key Individuals:

Smitha Narayanan, Head of Ad Sales and Marketing
Sathyajith Divakaran, Senior General Manager

TV9

Total Revenue: Rs 545.22 cr for FY22

Amit Tripathi
Chief Revenue Officer

Amit Tripathi joined TV9 as Chief Revenue Officer in 2020. Tripathi has over 21 years of experience in Sales, Marketing & Business Development. He has an expertise in managing operations in large business environment, formulating and implementing business strategies, developing new business, identifying new markets and key people, and developing new product concepts.”

Key individual

Azim Lalani, President, Revenue- Digital

India TV

Sudipto Chowdhuri
Executive President, Sales, India TV

"I think my key accomplishment is consistent performance for almost a decade. But also, building revenues and yield to a sustainable level, and holding the same even under extreme circumstances, e.g.,pandemic hit year and building a great, lean, mean, working machine – India TV’s Sales Team. I am also proud of creating impact revenue and yield benchmarks for properties like Aap Ki Adalat & Aaj Ki Baat. Today, there are too many national Hindi News channels, with everyone offering almost the same volume of inventory, and therefore, the supply is on the higher side, compared to the actual demand. This makes it difficult for any Sales Team, irrespective of channel performance or ranking, to sell at a stable/profitable rate. Had the supply been less, things would have been much better. In this fiercely competitive scenario, low-performing channels try to build their revenues by offering too many freebies and low rates, which further confuses the clients/buyers /agencies in deciding the “right price range’’ for National Hindi News Genre channels.”

Republic

Hersh Bhandari
Group COO - Broadcasting Division

Hersh Bhandari was elevated as Group COO in 2022. He oversees the entire national operations for all existing broadcast channels of the Network. With 24 years of experience, Hersh is a well-established industry veteran with the highest achievements to his credit. With his impeccable record, Hersh leads and strategizes all future growth of the Network’s broadcasting business into languages and regions. Hersh manages the entire broadcast business operations from the Network’s offices in Noida and Mumbai.

Key individual

Anand Sreenivasan, National Head, English Branded content

Bharat24

Manoj Jagyasi
Chief Business Officer

Manoj Jagyasi joined Bharat24 as Chief Business Officer and Strategic Advisor to the board. He is responsible for revenue management, marketing research, operations, and content co-creation. Jagyasi is also involved in all aspects of the broadcast business and advising the board for future expansion. He joins from Zee Media, where he worked as Chief Revenue Offiicer for around 2 years, and previously as Executive Cluster Head for one year.

News Nation

Bhuwan Bhatt
Chief Business Officer

Bhuwan Bhatt joined News Nation Network Private Limited in 2022. He is responsible for the performance of all revenue-generating avenues, driving growth through strategic decisions, partnering with key stakeholders, and steering revenue acceleration through his leadership. Bhatt has more than two decades of experience at senior positions in the media sector with leading broadcasting conglomerates, such as TV Today, Times group, Star TV, and NDTV. He has a proven track record of bringing great results in revenue optimization by leveraging strategic potential of existing assets.