MUMBAI: And the brain drain continues. Aaj Tak's West zone distribution head Arup Gopikrishna has called it quits as of 2 June. He will be joining Zee as the Zee Cinema and Zee Music assistant vice president- distribution.

Interestingly, he will report to Zee Cinema and Zee Music business head and director special projects Yogesh Radhakrishnan and not anyone in Zee-Turner, the company that manages the distribution of all the channels in the Zee bouquet.

Confirming the new appointment Radhakrishnan said, "We are very optimistic about Gopikrishna. He will be overseeing the national distribution for both Zee Cinema as well as Zee Music."

During his stint at Aaj Tak, Gopikrishna was a part of the core team that worked to bring about visibility for the channel in Mumbai. "It has been a very productive stint at Aaj Tak. When I started working with Aaj Tak, the channel had almost nil visibility in Mumbai. Not being a part of any carriage deal was really hampering us. With the help of some aggressive marketing and some personal contacts with the cable fraternity, we managed to get the channel on several cable platforms. And it has been the number one channel ever since," he said.

When queried about his priorities at Zee, Gopikrishna volunteered, "My first priority at Zee is to work on the visibility of Zee Music. The channel, despite good content, has been suffering because it is not as widely available as MTV. I will be involved in establishing relationships with the cable ops and working out better deals for the channel. Zee Cinema, on the other hand, is already a number one cinema channel. So our aim will be to keep it firmly established at the same position."

Gopikrishna started his career as a cable operator in 1991. He established Win Cable operations in Bandra with Bharat Hirwani. Later he joined the now defunct Technology Media Group (TMG) and was immediately picked up by Aaj Tak for its distribution department. At Aaj Tak, he reported to the distribution head, Amitabh Srivastava.