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Thukral brings with him 19 years of experience, and will head the consolidated distribution team. The consolidation has happened in order to drive penetration and revenues
Times Group’s two channels, Times Now and Zoom have decided to consolidate their distribution. The two will now have a single team that will handle the distribution for both the channels. This consolidation has happened in order to drive penetration and revenues.
Sunil Lulla, CEO, Times Global Broadcasting Company Ltd, remarks, “With the growing number of opportunities across platforms, such as Dish TV or IPTV, and with a view to expand market presence, the combined team will help spread both the brands to more homes.”
In addition, Vikram Thukral, vice-president, distribution, western region, STAR India, has been roped in as the head of this combined distribution system. He will be designated vice-president, distribution, Times Now and Zoom, and will report the two CEOs of the respective channels, namely, Sunil Lulla (Times Now) and Suresh Bala (Zoom).
But why have a consolidated distribution team now, and not at the time of Times Now’s launch? Explains Lulla, “At that point in time, Zoom itself was in a nascent stage, being around a year old itself. Now, Zoom has settled well as a channel, and is quite popular in its genre.” For the record, Zoom was launched in October, 2004.
“Now, the time is ripe for the two channels to grow each other’s distribution and revenues. Also, we were waiting to put the right team in place, which we have now done,” Lulla says.
According to Lulla, Zoom and Times Now each are present in 20-25 million homes today. The target is to take this figure up to 30-35 million in the future, for each of the two channels, respectively.
Thukral brings with him over 19 years of experience in the field of distribution, eight of which were spent at STAR India. He started off with the tyre company Ceat India. Since 1998, he was with STAR India, where he was first made in charge of the distribution in the northern and eastern regions of India, following which he championed the bouquet’s distribution in West India.
At STAR India, Thukral played a key role in setting up the distribution for STAR’s recently launched channels, STAR One and STAR Utsav.
For the record, Times Now is owned by Times Global Broadcasting (a Times Group and Reuter’s company) and Zoom is fully owned by Bennett Coleman & Co Ltd (BCCL).
© 2006 agencyfaqs!