Over the last few months, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL) is going through a lot of organizational changes. In a recent development, Bollywood Hungama has learned that Bavesh Janavlekar has been appointed as the Business Head of Marathi films at Zee Studios.
Interestingly, Bavesh Janavlekar is also the head of Zee Television Channel and Zee Talkies and will now also lead the Marathi division at the film production company. Bavesh replaces Mangesh Kulkarni who was at this position in Zee Studios since June 2017.
A source told Bollywood Hungama, “Ever since the merger between ZEEL and Sony didn’t materialize, there have been a lot of rumours about the former. It was also said that Zee will shut down its Marathi films division. However, Bavesh Janavlekar’s appointment proves that it’s not going to happen.”
The source continued, “Zee under the leadership of Bavesh Janavlekar had a lot of grand plans. They already have some Marathi films in their pipeline and are already planning their future lineup. In the past, they have made memorable films like Sairat, Faster Fene, Dharmaveer, Vaalvi, etc. and Bavesh wants to continue with the track record.”
In April, it was reported that CEO Punit Goenka will assume direct charge of key business verticals, including the domestic broadcast business. After the exit of Zee Studios CEO Shariq Patel, Umesh Bansal is now leading the movie business. Anurag Bedi, meanwhile, continues to lead the music business. Ruchir Tiwari, too, remains as the lead of the Hindi Movies cluster. Vishnu Shankar, on the other hand, continues to lead Hindi GEC &TV and the FTA segment.
Amit Goenka, besides handling the streaming business, has now taken direct charge of original content, including movies, besides assuming additional charge of the international broadcast business, enterprise technology, and broadcast operations & engineering. Siju Prabhakaran, who leads the South cluster of channels, has also taken charge of the West cluster. Samrat Ghosh, the current head of the East cluster of channels, has taken additional responsibility for the North and Premium clusters.
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