As senior V-P programming and production Rekha Nigam gets ready to clear her desk over the next few days, the reports coming out of Sony Entertainment Television are that there is a major restructuring in the pipeline.

In the immediate term Nachiket Pantvaidya, VP programming, and Anupama Mandloi, director programming, have been assigned the task of holding fort as it were till a final decision is made on who will replace Nigam. Additionally, a senior executive from the Los Angeles headquarters is reportedly coming down to India to check on things.

And the man who reportedly initiated the hatchet job - Los Angeles-based Columbia Tristar Television International president Michael Grindon - in India for the last three days for the very purpose, flies back tonight.

An industry observer believes that the channel has 30 to 35 people in excess at the moment and over the coming weeks and months what is likely to be witnessed is a major jettisoning process. At the end of it all there is likely to be seen a leaner, meaner organisation.

This "rightsizing" will also involve the exit of quite a few senior executives who cannot claim to have a clear role to play. And some who do have well defined ones but are seen to have fallen short on deliveries.

Grindon had reportedly scheduled a senior level meeting this evening to discuss all issues linked to the restructuring but that appears to have been put out of joint following the bomb hoax that led to the evacuation of the Sony offices earlier in the evening.

Lakshmi Venkat has joined United Television as a creative director telefilms.

Venkat, who took up office on 1 October, is responsible for developing new shows and monitoring shows done by her, managing her in house teams as well as external talent on her shows. Apart from being responsible for quality control and high TRPs for her shows, she will also be look after client relationships with the channels, ensuring schedules are fixed and maintained as per client requirements.

UTV?s TV content division consists of multiple creative directors who are responsible for the creative as well as qualitative content of their respective divisions. The other creative directors at UTV are Zarina Mehta, Ramesh Balakrishnan and Neeraj Naik.

Venkat comes to UTV from Zee TV, where she worked first as programming head and before being reassigned in March 2000 to create a new international channel called "Chakra" for the Zee Network.

Prior to Zee, Venkat has worked as general manager, programming and business development for In-House Productions, Mumbai. Before that she was with the IndusInd group, initially on their cable channel project and later as channel chief of In-Mumbai.

She also had a brief stint as vice-president of Shogun Films, before getting back to freelance production with various assignments: supervising producer for a chat show on Home TV; city producer for the election specials on national broadcaster Doordarshan; as well as consultant on concept and design of a daily breakfast show.

Hardly had the dust settled on the bombshell that programming head Rekha Nigam was leaving Sony Entertainment Television, its head office in Mumbai‘s Andheri suburb had to be evacuated after the police said they had received information that there was a bomb in the premises.

All the staffers were asked to go home and those who didn‘t were seen milling outside the premises. The staff cleared out at around 3:30 pm and the police arrived an hour later.

The dog squad was also pressed into service looking at the "gravity" of the situation and arrived at the site in "double-quick time" at 6:45 pm, just three-and-a-quarter hours after the order to evacuate the buildings. At the time of posting this report, the police were still searching the buildings.

Business channel CNBC India is keenly pushing its ‘Managing India‘ brand forward. ‘Managing India‘ is a half-hour program that showcases company leaders and people whose hands are on the pulse of corporate India.
It was in July in Mumbai that it conducted the first of its events under the brand which brought CEO‘s of companies and corporate bigwigs together to thrash out issues affecting the corporate and business world.

Now the next event oin the series will be held in Delhi on 9 October and will be sponsored by technology majors Sun Microsystems and Azim Premji‘s Wipro.

According to Sunil Nair, marketing manager CNBC India, since the event is in Delhi it will have a political flavour with discussions centering on the state of the economy. Politicians from different parties as well as crucial decision-makers from major companies will be present. They will all get a chance to present their viewpoint. The focal point of the meet is to discuss the state of affairs of India Inc. and offer suggestions as to how the economy and industry can move forward at a time of recession and global uncertainty. The business leaders will also offer their advice as to what shape government policies should take.

The Delhi event will be shown on the channel on 19 October with hour-long repeats on the 20th and 21st.

Reponding to reports that CNBC India is looking to tie up with regional news channels, Nair said that they were looking at states like Gujarat which are business oriented but that nothing concrete had come through as yet.

As far as content is concerned the channel is focussing on the evening band called ‘Executive Suite‘. It features incisive business analyses, data on the stock markets from here as well as America, discussions with corporate executives on the days events as well as how well their companies are performing. There is also a program called ‘Digital Evolution‘ which analyses how companies are using the latest technology to expand their business and gain competitive edge.