Viacom18 names Jyoti Deshpande as CEO

Viacom18, the joint venture between Reliance Industries-controlled TV18 and ViacomCBS, has appointed Jyoti Deshpande as the company’s chief executive.
Viacom18 said that in her new assignment, Deshpande will help bring synergies across all of Reliance’s media interests and investments and further equip the company to drive significant growth opportunities as the industry embraces digital transformation.

Deshpande has been with Reliance Industries since April 2018 as president of the chairman's office for Media Platform & Content.

She is also serving on the boards of Network18 and investee companies Balaji Telefilms and Saavn Media.

“Viacom18 is poised to grow as a truly integrated media company across broadcast, OTT and content studio business spanning general entertainment, movies and sports across languages,” said Adil Zainulbhai, Chairman, Network18. “Given Jyoti’s rich experience in the media sector around content, distribution and monetisation across traditional and emerging platforms, we believe she is best placed to lead the company and its operations.”

ET has learned that entire entertainment business, including linear TV broadcast, film studio and OTT service Voot will report in to Deshpande.

However, the sports business, which is being set up under Anil Jayaraj, has been kept out of her mandate.

Deshpande comes with over 27 years of experience in the media and entertainment business. Prior to Reliance Industries, she was MD & Group CEO of Indian film studio Eros International since 2009.

At Eros, she was instrumental in the launch of the company’s OTT service Eros Now and also helped Eros raise $100 million to refinance existing debt without default.

In the last three years she leveraged her industry relationships to establish Jio Studios as a key player in the media value chain, the company said.