Viacom 18 undergoes restructuring; Rajesh Kamat promoted

Kamat will continue to serve as chief executive officer, Colors

Viacom 18 has undergone a restructuring. Rajesh Kamat, chief executive officer, Colors has been promoted as chief operating officer, Viacom 18. Kamat will also continue his responsibilities as the CEO of the general entertainment channel. The position of COO is a newly created one. Kamat will report to Haresh Chawla, group CEO, Viacom 18. In his new role, Kamat will oversee network functions and growth of Viacom18, while continuing to consolidate Colors' position in the market.

Viacom 18 channels comprise of channels such as Colors, MTV, VH1 and Nick. It is a joint venture between Viacom and Network18 and Colors, the GEC, was the channel launched under its umbrella.

Earlier, Kamat has worked with production house Endemol and STAR India. A graduate from Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Kamat was hired by Coca-Cola on campus as a management trainee in the marketing function. He spent three years at Coca-Cola and later, moved to Asiacontent and MTV's joint venture, MTV On-Line, as head, marketing.

His next destination was STAR India, where he worked in the media buying and planning off-air, in the strategising and acquisitions functions. Subsequently, he moved to Endemol as managing director and had a crucial role to play in setting up the company's India operations.

In another significant development, Ashish Patil, general manager and senior vice-president, creative and content, MTV India has been appointed senior vice-president, new ventures and general manager, youth movies. Patil has had a long innings at MTV, spanning more than a decade.

About his new role, Patil says, "Given my passion for young people and films, I hope I will be able to put all my learning from the last 12 years in this organisation to good use across all the new ventures in the pipeline, more specifically, the youth movies space." He will work with Kamat to explore growth opportunities for Viacom 18.

Patil started his career with Contract Advertising as a copy writer. After acquiring a management degree, he joined SSC&B Lintas in the account planning stream. He joined MTV in the marketing division in 1998 and in 2003, shifted to the programming division.

Vikas Varma of 9XM will join Viacom 18 as head, creative and content, MTV in place of Patil. He was head, music entertainment channels, 9XM and head, content and programming, 9X. His stint with the company lasted almost three years.

In 2005, he joined Radio City as national programming head. He was there for about one and a half years. Prior to that, he was chief operating officer, TV Content, UTV for one and half years, overseeing business strategy, operations and business development.

He has had the longest stint (more than a decade) at Touche Communications, which he quit as managing director. He has also worked for agencies such as Madison Advertising and Frank Simoes Advertising in the client servicing function.

"In my new assignment, I look forward to further deepen and enrich the MTV offerings. When you are targeting the 15-24 year olds, it's always a challenge to stay ahead of them and MTV has done that successfully," says Varma.