Tarun Katial (born 7 January 1975) is an Indian media executive and businessman, known for his work in Indian television. He is the founder and CEO at Coto, and was CEO of

Reliance Broadcast Network Reliance Group (stylized as ReLIΛNCe) is an Indian conglomerate, headquartered in Mumbai, India. The company, which was formed after Dhirubhai Ambani's business was divided up, is headed by his younger son Anil Ambani. Reliance Group has f ...

and

ZEE5 ZEE5 or Z5 is an Indian subscription video on demand and over-the-top streaming service, owned 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 We ...

(2018–2020). He was a founder and CEO of Big FM. He is now an investor in the media-tech space and invests in 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. Katial began his career at

Saatchi & Saatchi Saatchi and 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 ...

, Enterprise Nexus Lowe and Ogilvy & Mather, and later moved to

Star Network A star network is an implementation of a spoke–hub distribution paradigm in computer networks. In a star network, every host is connected to a central hub. In its simplest form, one central hub acts as a conduit to transmit messages. The ...

, headed several channels across the networks in India before moving to

Sony Entertainment Television Sony Entertainment Television (abbreviated as SET) is an Indian Hindi-language general entertainment pay television channel that was launched in 1995 and is owned by Culver Max Entertainment, a division of Sony Pictures. History This chann ...

as its business head in 2004. He received the

Indian Telly Awards The Indian Telly Awards is an annual award for excellence both on-screen and behind-the-scenes of Hindi-language television. Conceptualised and created by Anil Wanvari, the founder, CEO of media and services group, indiantelevision.com, they a ...

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, MiM, MMgt) is a master's degree comprising one or two years graduate level coursework in business management. In terms of content, it is similar to the Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree as it contain ...

(MBA) from

University of Mumbai University of Mumbai is a public state university in Mumbai. It is one of the largest university systems in the world with over 549,000 students on its campuses and affiliated colleges. , the university had 711 affiliated colleges. It was est ...

. 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 StarPlus is an Indian Hindi-language general entertainment pay television channel owned by JioStar, a joint venture between Viacom18 and Disney India. Its programming consists of family dramas, romantic comedies, youth-oriented reali ...

. He worked as a business head and executive vice-president of

. He was head of channels at

before joining the

Sony Pictures Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment studio conglomerate that produces, acquires, and distributes filmed entertainment (theatrical motion pictures, television programs, and rec ...

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, then joined

in November 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'', ''

Kaun Banega Crorepati ''Kaun Banega Crorepati'' (simply ''KBC''; English: ''Who Will Become a Crorepati'') is an Indian Hindi-language television game show. It is the official Hindi adaptation of the '' Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'' franchise. It is presented ...

'' (KBC),

Bigg Boss ''Bigg Boss'' is an Indian reality show franchise based on the Dutch reality show '' Big Brother''. It is produced by Endemol Shine India through JioStar Network. Subsequently, the various versions of the show are made internationally availabl ...

, '' Fear Factor: Khatron Ke Khiladi'' and '' Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin''. 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 The Big STAR Entertainment Awards was an annual award show presented by Reliance Broadcast Network Limited in association with STAR India to honour personalities from the field of entertainment across movies, music, television, sports, theatr ...

in 2010 in collaboration with

Star India Disney Star (also known as JioStar), registered as JioStar India Private Limited, is an Indian media conglomerate joint venture owned with a share of 16.34% by Reliance Industries, 46.82% by Viacom18 and 36.84% by Disney India. On 14 Nove ...

. 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