Kevin Vaz quits Disney Star, likely to join Viacom18 as CEO

Kevin Vaz, the head of network entertainment channels at Disney Star, has quit the company after a 26-year stint. Vaz is likely to join Viacom18 Media as its chief executive officer, replacing Jyoti Deshpande, two people with knowledge of the development said.

Vaz had first joined the then Star India in 1996 in the sales function, and soon became the youngest ad sales lead in the company’s history. Subsequently, he was given charge of various linear TV channels including Star Utsav, Star Jalsha and later the entire South cluster. 

A close confidant of former Walt Disney Co. Asia Pacific president and Star and Disney India chairman Uday Shankar, Vaz is likely to head the entire TV and digital portfolio for Viacom18, except sports, which is under Anil Jayaraj, one of the persons said. 

Shankar has recently been inducted into the Viacom18 board after Bodhi Tree Systems, a fund by Shankar and James Murdoch invested ₹4306 crore in Viacom18. 

Meanwhile, Jyoti Deshpande, who also heads Jio Studios and is president, chairman office at Reliance Industries, is likely to head the studio business. Deshpande was named chief executive of Viacom18 in September 2021. She also serves on the boards of Network18 and Reliance’s investee companies Balaji Telefilms and Saavn Media. 

Disney Star declined to comment on Mint’s queries while an email sent to Viacom18 remained unanswered. Vaz was also elevated as the head of the network’s entire linear TV portfolio (except sports), consisting of 53 channels, in September 2021. He was instrumental in growing the company's regional entertainment business across Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam markets. 

Star India posted a 74% increase in its consolidated net profit for the financial year ended 31 March 2022. The company’s profit jumped to  ₹1421.27 crore, from  ₹815.72 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. 

According to data accessed by business intelligence platform Tofler, the company’s revenues for the financial year stood at Rs. 17,480.62 crore, a 38% jump over  ₹12,664.36 crore in the year-ago period. 

Since the exit of Shankar from Disney Star, many senior executives from the company have been poached by Viacom18 and Jio. The list also includes Anil Jayaraj, who, prior to joining Viacom18 Sports as CEO, was heading ad sales for Disney Star’s Star Sports Network. 

Gulshan Verma and Akash Saxena quit Disney+Hotstar to join JioAds and Viacom18 as CEO and CTO, respectively, while last month, IndiaCast, the multi-platform content asset monetisation entity owned by Reliance-owned TV18 and Viacom18 roped in Piyush Goyal as COO. He was executive vice president and head - key accounts at Star India.