Deepak Dhar of Banijay: Bigg Boss of entertainment in India

livemint.com:

Big Brother (UK), and it was quite risqué. “I looked at it and thought, oh my god, what have I just signed up to make," says Dhar, now the group chief executive officer of Banijay Asia and EndemolShine India. “In those days, people hadn’t thought of 100 cameras, 24x7, unfiltered, reality voyeurism at its best," says 50-year-old Dhar.

Cut to the present day, and Banijay recently announced the third season of Bigg Boss OTT with actor Anil Kapoor as host, while Bigg Boss with Salman Khan as host, both inspired by Big Brother, is into its 16th season on cable television. It was this show that established Dutch company Endemol’s foray into the Indian entertainment market and propelled it into one of the region’s biggest production companies, with shows and series such as Fear Factor—Khatron ke Khiladi, Trial by Fire and Aarya. Endemol’s estimated revenue in the last financial year was over ₹450 crore, with Banijay Asia targeting ₹ 1,000 crore this financial year.

Also read: Saahil Goel of Shiprocket: The delivery guy In a quirk of fate, Dhar left Endemol as managing director and CEO after a decade in 2017 to found Banijay Asia, as a joint venture with French multinational Banijay Group. When the Banijay Group acquired EndemolShine Group globally in 2020, Dhar was back to heading his old company— “the champion and the challenger coming together to create a huge ecosystem", as he calls it. But the two companies keep separate income statements and managements.