By Our Staff

Pradeep Guha, one of the seniormost professionals in Indian media, passed away earlier today. Guha was critically ill and was put on ventilator on Friday morning. He was in intensive care at the Kokilaben Ambani Hospital in North West Mumbai, after he was diagnosed with advanced liver cancer a few weeks back.

Guha is one of the few professionals to have straddled both print and electronic media platforms with much success. He headed the Times of India group (where he spent nearly three decades) and the Zee Entertainment Network from 2005 to 2008. And since 2010, he took charge of the 9XM bouquet of music channels and turned them around.

He was also Area Director and Vice President, Asia Pacific of the International Advertising Association. A few years back he was the first inductee into the prestigious Hall of Fame set up by the India Chapter of the IAA. He was also  Chairman of the Asian Federation of Advertising Associations (AFAA).

He is credited with organising the AdAsia 2003, Jaipur, the benchmark for such events even today. He has been the President of the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) and the India Chapter IAA. He  also had a success career in Bollywood having produced highly acclaimed films like Fiza.

Guha was a man of many parts. While he started as a hardnosed adsales professional with The Times of India, he moved up the ladder to head the publishing division of the group. He transformed the Miss India and Filmfare awards and along the way the magazines to very high profile and successful awards in the business. Both of them existed long before Guha took over the reins, but he made them slick and counted for and aspirational. The Bombay Times party that he organised was the most sought after by Mumbai affluentials.