Kumar Mangalam Birla ropes in Sameer Nair to helm Applause Entertainment

Sameer Nair, who quit as Group CEO of Balaji Telefilms in July this year, has been roped in for Applause Entertainment, the production company of Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman, Aditya Birla Group. Birla is all set to revive Applause, which has been dormant for close to 10 years. The company had produced Amitabh Bachchan starrers – ‘Black’ and ‘Dev’. 

Before joining Balaji Telefilms, Nair had co-founded Pride Rock. He had also worked with Goldwire Communications and UDI Yellow Pages. 

He was CEO of NDTV Imagine for five years from 2006 to 2011. Prior to that, he was with Star India, where during a stint of 12 years he had held the positions of Programming Head, COO and CEO. 

As per media reports, Birla plans to revive Applause Entertainment to create premium content for digital media and tap the OTT segment. It is learnt that Birla is planning to pump in Rs 200 crore-Rs 300 crore to create the content.