MUMBAI: Sahara One today officially announced the appointment of Shantonu Aditya as CEO of the company, while saying the restructuring of its media and entertainment business into three strategic units was complete.

The three arenas are the general entertainment television, motion pictures and movie channel businesses. Says restructuring initiative head Peter Isaac, "Aditya will head the initiatives that we enter in this business. Each unit will be an individual profit centre which will form a part of the larger corporate entity." Aditya moves from SET Discovery where he was president of the company.

Plans are afoot to build the Sahara Film City soon. Sahara's media and entertainment business was rebranded "Sahara One" last October with a new channel ID and promotions.

Speaking on his appointment, Aditya says: "I am delighted at the prospect of leading Sahara's media & entertainment business. Having already become the market leader in Hindi Film content production with over six releases in the last eight months, Sahara One is poised to take giant strides in the near future."

Adds Isaac: "We are pleased to have completed the first phase of the venture. The effort is moving ahead smoothly and business operations are being established within both time and cost targets."

As already reported by indiantelevision.com, Sahara has now completed the first phase of restructuring the media and entertainment business into three strategic business units - "Sahara One" Entertainment Television, "Sahara One" Motion Pictures and "Sahara One" Filmy (the Hindi Film based entertainment channel). Plans are afoot to build the Sahara Film City soon for which detailed research has been completed and plans are being finalized.

Aditya's core team is as follows: Purnendu Bose - COO "Sahara One" Television Channel; Sandeep Bhargava - COO, "Sahara One" Motion Pictures; Ashutosh - Business Head, "Sahara One" Filmy Channel; Avijit Mita - head programming, non-fiction & on-air programmes, "Sahara One" Entertainment Channel; Kumud Choudhary - head programming - fiction - "Sahara One" Entertainment Channel; Mukul Mishra - head on-air programmes, "Sahara One" Filmy Channel; and Soumen Ghosh Choudhary - head broadcast operations and engineering, "Sahara One" Entertainment Channel.