UTV Ltd has embarked on a restructuring drive, both at the people and the organisation levels.
The company's businesses of post-production, dubbing, inflight services and ad films have been spun off into a new division called Allied Content Services.
A COO -- Sandeep Bhargava, formerly associate vice president at Bates India -- has been named to head this division. UTV has also restructured it's motion pictures business -- where the thrust was just distribution of films.
The division will now to look into areas such as international co-production of movies, international distribution and the formation of a film fund.
The company has named Ram Mirchandani as the general manager for this division.
Mirchandani joins after a seven-year stint with Modi Entertainment in various roles including as the business head of Fashion TV.
UTV expects to induct a COO for the division by July end. Talking about the new appointments and restructuring, Ronnie Screwvala, chairman and CEO of UTV, said, "The inductions allow me to focus on business development and creativity and look at international opportunities, while ensuring that the company is in a constant phase of innovation in these very challenging but exciting times."
The company has also inducted Ronald D'Mello as director-operations and finance. He will look after the entire day to day commercial and operational functions of the company.
D'Mello was earlier with UTV for over 10 years as CFO and later as director-corporate planning after which he had an 18-month stint at Star TV.
The airtime sales business, which is one of the main services that UTV provides to Doordarshan and broadcasters in the south and accounts for 30 per cent of the total revenues, will now operate as a separate division headed by Anil Mishra.
Currently, the airtime sales business is a robust business for UTV. During the last financial year, the company sold 4,200 minutes of commercial time across channels.
This year, Mishra is targeting 7,800 minutes of commercial time to be sold by year end March 2004.
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