Viacom18 has appointed Gaurav Gandhi as its chief operating officer starting 1 August, reports Indiantelevision. Viacom18 has also launched a new digital business called Viacom18 Digital Ventures. Gandhi comes to Viacom18 from IndiaCast, which is the joint venture between TV18 and Viacom18, where he was the group COO for over 3 years. He was responsible for driving channel and content distribution revenues in domestic and international markets across platforms and media. He also looked after ad sales and other business functions for international markets. Gandhi was also the COO of Sun 18 North region, which is also a TV18 and Viacom18 group company for over a year. Prior to that, Gandhi headed the distribution and international business of Viacom18 Media for over 2 years and worked as the chief commercial officer of Viacom18 Media for a year. He was the executive VP of business operations and content sales at NDTV Imagine for 3 years before that. Gandhi also worked as the VP for commercial and business planning at Star TV (owned by NewsCorp) for 3.5 years. Before joining Star, he worked as a manager of research and planning at Turner International India for 3 years and group head of strategic planning at Madison Communications for about 2.5 years. TV18 developments and financials: - Last month, Network18 Media owned English news channel CNN-IBN said it would lose its prefix as it ended its 10-year brand licensing deal with Turner Broadcasting System. In a filing with the Bombay Stock Exchange, TV 18 said the company…
