'His role will be to foster synergies with partners and create new product expansion strategies with the aim to drive subscription numbers and revenues'
Akash Banerji, business head at VOOT, the video streaming platform owned by Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd has moved to Amazon India, said people familiar with the development. Banerji will head the company’s central mobile business development unit that works across different verticals- video, music, Kindle and others and the multiple strategic distribution partners such as telcos.
“His role will be to foster synergies with partners and create new product expansion strategies with the aim to drive subscription numbers and revenues," one of the people mentioned above said.
Viacom and Amazon did not respond to Mint’s queries.
Banerji’s move comes in the wake of the imminent merger of Sony Pictures Networks and Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd's that is likely to help their respective video streaming platforms, SonyLIV and VOOT, come together to form an entity that will have 20-30% higher revenue than the two did individually.
As services owned by broadcast networks, the two have remained small players in the OTT (over-the-top streaming) space in India so far, capitalising on catch-up television content. But the high-profile merger—expected to be announced soon—will give them greater size, scale and bargaining power to create more original content, said media industry experts.
Prior to VOOT, Banerji was with Star India where he was vice-president and head of marketing for the digital business with their then newly launched streaming platform Hotstar. He was also associate vice-president, marketing for Star Sports.
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