Hathway expands Shirish Ruparel's role; ropes in Star's NM Rao to head content

The business environment faced by Hathway in an increasingly digitised world is undergoing rapid changes. In a move to strengthen its Content team and to diversify its revenue streams, Hathway is restructuring its Content vertical by expanding the role of Shirish Ruparel, Executive Vice President - Content & VAS with the growing demands of the business.

Ruparel’s portfolio will now include Content & Carriage, Ad sales, OTT service offerings and value added services as Hathway looks to create new revenue streams in the new digitisation era. As part of his expanded role, Ruparel would now oversee content & carriage and ad sales monetization, while also developing Hathways’ in-house channel bouquet into a series of strong pan-India and regional channels and improving the content portfolio for in-house and regional channel base by working with leading production and content providers.

Additionally, Ruparel will also be responsible to grow the value pie of Hathway across new streams such as OTT (Over-the-top TV) services & offers and diversify the business into segments such as VAS (value-added services), including VOD (video-on demand), mobile streaming, EPG amongst other key monetisation initiatives. In his expanded role, Ruparel will continue to report to TS Panesar, President - Video Business.

Meanwhile, Hathway has also brought on board NM Rao as Head - Content & Carriage to handle All-India content and carriage with effect from April 4, 2016, based at their corporate office in Mumbai and reporting to Ruparel.

Rao joins Hathway from Star India, where he was working as Assistant Vice President - Affiliate Sales, looking after Carriage & Content for key MSO accounts as part of the broadcaster’s distribution set-up. Having an experience of over 15 years, Rao has been a part of the media & broadcast industry for more than a decade, having worked across both print and electronic media in the areas of Affiliate Sales with Star TV (Content, Carriage, Trade Marketing) and Advertising Sales with The Times of India (Print & Special Projects). As part of his new role, Rao will be responsible for negotiation and management of all content deals with broadcasters, both for content & carriage.

Commenting on this restructuring, Jagdish Kumar, MD & CEO, Hathway Cable & Datacom, said, “In the digitisation era, content will play an integral role for Hathway in defining and transforming customer experience and with this aim, we are bringing in a change in our content vertical composition. Shirish Ruparel has been one of the key members of the senior management and contributed immensely towards the building of our Content team. We are expanding his role to utilise his vast experience and expertise in building wider content revenue streams in segments like OTT and VAS. We are also pleased to have NM Rao on board with us to look after Content & Carriage as we aim to create a strong vertical with multiple revenue streams that will set the business in the new fiscal. With his vast experience in distribution, content & carriage with Star, we are extremely confident that NM will provide the right boost to our overall objectives and set new benchmarks.”

In February, Hathway had also hired Anand Kamani as Vice President – Ad Sales, to handle its ad-sales business at an all-India level, also reporting into Shirish Ruparel. With the expansion of Ruparel’s role and Rao also joining the team, Hathway is looking at an aggressive roadmap to build its content portfolio to increase revenue generation at a time when digitisation roll-out is underway in Phase 3 and 4 and is targeted to complete by end of this year. With DTH players also looking to offer additional value added services to its consumers, Hathway as one of the leading multi-system operators is also looking at the next level of customisation by offering its subscribers products and solutions which will provide added entertainment and benefits to build better ARPUs.