| MUMBAI:
The entertainment business is the place to be with oodles of opportunity, economic
downturn, red ink stained bottomlines despite. At least that seems to have attracted
Manav Dhanda and Shankar Rath to set up their own content production house M&S.
The duo
put in their papers recently at Big Broadcasting. They describe their venture
as a "one stop shop for all media solutions related to televison, films,
radio, ad films, events activation, training and Strategic Consultancy for creative,
programming and communication and technical." "I
had this urge to set up something myself ," says Dhanda, "and I was
clear I would not do it alone. When I met Shankar and we vibed well, we had a
common vision, I knew that we would make a good team and hence I venture out."
Dhanda has
had experience in working for both radio and television, having had stints at
as a producer and a programming professional with Radio Mirchi, Sony Entertainment,
Miditech, Big FM and then finally headed a kids channel and movie production at
Big Broadcasting. Rath,
has had more than 12 years experience as a technical professional with Star and
was among the first two employees to hop onto the network's broadcast and engineering
operations way back in the mid-nineties. Rath says he sees potential for M&S
to offer digitisation and other outsourcing services to companies in India and
overseas. The
two are in talks with a couple of VCs and PEs to fund their plans, and point out
that talks for a couple of client projects are in their final stages. "We
should be able to make some announcements soon," says Dhanda. | 
