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Raj
Nayak is currently designated Executive Vice President -Sales
and Marketing at Star India Ltd. He is responsible for the
entire Advertising Sales revenue for all STAR Channels,
in India including partnership ventures like Channel [V],
National Geographic Channel and Vijay TV. Raj is a key member
of the Management team at Star India and also on the Board
of Indya.com and Vijay TV.
He joined Star in 1993 as an Area Sales Manager for North
and East, based in Delhi. Within a span of 3 years he was
promoted to Sales Manager India, Star Sports. Its main competitor
across the region was ESPN. In 1996 both the channels had
indulged in a fair bit of undercutting with an aim to gain
viewership. This however did not provide either with significant
gains. At this stage they realised there was more to gain
by working together and they came together to form a new
venture ESPN STAR Sports.
At that stage Sports as a category was not established and
more so was and to a large extent continues to be a male
skewed channel. The nature of the channel and the climate
in which it operated ensured full coverage on key i.e. India/Pak
matches and not much otherwise. It was at this stage at
which Raj changed the way Sports Television was marketed
in the country. He grew within the channel and in 3 years
was promoted to Vice President where he played an important
role in strategizing, packaging and marketing of the 1999
World Cup Cricket - One of his largest successes to date.
Raj then moved to Mumbai as Sr. Vice President to head the
Sales and Marketing of all Star Channels i.e. STAR World,
Vijay TV, Channel [V], STAR Movies, STAR Gold, STAR News
and National Geographic Channel in the market. Having successfully
grown the Niche Channels he was given the responsibility
to head Sales of the entire Network which is his current
role.
Raj started his career with Tata Economic Consultancy Services
as a Consultant. After a 2-year stint with the company he
moved to The Indian Post, a J K Group company as Deputy
Marketing Manager. He then moved to Sunday Mail where he
launched the Southern Editions as Regional Manager. He was
also responsible for the operation of Independent Television
Company in Bangalore both owned by the Dalmia Group. He
joined the Thapar Group after a 2-year stint with the Dalmia
Group of Companies as Sr. Marketing Manager for The Pioneer
Newspaper, when it relaunched under Vinod Mehta as the Editor.
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