Tarun Katial (born 7 January 1975) is an Indian media executive and business professional, known for his work in

Indian television The television industry in India is very diverse and produces thousands of programs in many of the Indian languages. More than half of all Indian households own a television. As of 2016, the country had over 857 channels of which 184 were pay ...

. He served as CEO of

Reliance Broadcast Network Reliance Broadcast Network Limited (RBNL) is a subsidiary of the Indian Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. Reliance Broadcast Network operates Big FM Radio stations and BIG Magic Television stations in India. Music Broadcast entered an a ...

and

ZEE5 ZEE5 is an Indian subscription video on-demand and over-the-top streaming service, run by Zee Entertainment Enterprises. It was launched in India on 14 February 2018 with content in 12 languages. The ZEE5 mobile app is available on Web, Andro ...

(2018–2020). He was a founder and CEO of Big FM. He is now an investor in the media-tech space and also invests in and actively mentors edutech and media-tech businesses. Results and Outcomes, Genius Inside, Serendpity MediaTech, Lomotif are some of the ventures. He was a Senior Advisor at Lomotif during the sale for 120 million. He is the Founder & CEO of Eve World, a Web3 social community platform for women. The platform aims to build a responsible virtual environment that curates a positive and valuable digital experience for women worldwide. Katial began his career at

Saatchi & Saatchi Saatchi & Saatchi is a British multinational communications and advertising agency network with 114 offices in 76 countries and over 6,500 staff. It was founded in 1970 and is currently headquartered in London. The parent company of the agency gr ...

, Enterprise Nexus Lowe and Ogilvy & Mather, and later moved to Star Network, headed several channels across the networks in India before moving to

Sony Entertainment Television Sony Entertainment Television (SET) is an Indian Hindi-language general entertainment pay television channel, that was launched on 30 September 1995, and is owned by Culver Max Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese Sony. SET India's ...

as its business head in 2004. He received the Indian Telly Awards in 2002 for Best TV Programming Executive of The Year category. The next year, he was nominated for same award for Best TV Programming Head of the Year category.

Life and career

Tarun Katial was born on 7 January 1975. He studied

Master of Management The Master of Management (MM, MBM, MIM, MMgt) is a master’s degree comprising one or two years graduate level coursework in business management. As the program is designed for students interested in entering leadership roles, the degree attrac ...

(MBA) from

University of Mumbai The University of Mumbai is a collegiate, state-owned, public research university in Mumbai. The University of Mumbai is one of the largest universities in the world. , the university had 711 affiliated colleges. Ratan Tata is the appointed h ...

. He started his career as a media trainee at

, and later became a media executive at Enterprise Nexus Lowe and Ogilvy & Mather, senior vice-president of Star Plus. He worked as a business head and executive vice-president of

. He was head of channels at Star Network before joining the Sony Pictures as business head and executive vice-president in 2004. In 2006, He founded Big FM, a private radio station, where he worked as a COO and CEO for over 12 years. He worked as a CEO of

till 2016. In November 2016, he joined

, and became its CEO in May 2018. He resigned his position from ZEE5 in November 2020.

Works

Katial was responsible for several successful Indian television shows which include ''

Indian Idol ''Indian Idol'' is the Indian music competition television franchise based on the ''Pop Idol ''Pop Idol'' is a British music competition television series created by Simon Fuller which ran on ITV from 2001 to 2003. The aim of the show w ...

'', ''

Kaun Banega Crorepati ''Kaun Banega Crorepati'' (also simply known as ''KBC'') is an Indian Hindi-language television game show. It is the official Hindi adaptation of the ''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'' franchise. It has been presented by actor Amitabh Bachchan ...

'' (KBC),

Bigg Boss ''Bigg Boss'' is an Indian reality television game show franchise based on the Dutch reality show '' Big Brother''. It is produced by Endemol Shine India through Viacom18 and Disney Star. Subsequently, the various versions of the show are made ...

, '' Fear Factor: Khatron Ke Khiladi'' and ''

Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin ''Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin'' () is an Indian soap opera which aired on Sony Entertainment Television from 1 September 2003 to 4 May 2006. The series was an Indian-themed version of the Colombian drama ''Yo soy Betty, la fea''. Plot Based large ...

''. Under his leadership, ZEE5, hosted over 100 programs in various genres and languages. While working as CEO of Reliance Broadcast Network, he founded the BIG Star Entertainment Awards in 2010 in collaboration with Star India. In 2019, Katial participated in the 24th Paley International Council Summit, and became the first Indian CEO from the OTT industry to speak at the Paley International Council Summit.

Personal life

Katial is married with Monisha Singh Katial.

Awards and nominations

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Katial, Tarun 1975 births Living people Indian business executives Indian television executives