MUMBAI: Samar Khan, the man behind Bollywood Tonight on Zee Cinema has quit Applause Entertainment and will be joining UTV shortly.

Khan started his career as a production assistant on radio, moved on to Newstrack as a correspondent, joined NDTV as Entertainment Editor (eight years) and then joined Applause Entertainment as Vice President, New Projects Development. His stay at Applause Entertainment spanned just over 15 months. Applause Entertainment CEO Anshumaan Swami confirmed Khan's exit, and said that the company is on the lookout for a replacement.

Khan has joined UTV and will assume office as Producer, Motion Pictures (UTV's film division) from 15 May.

Khan says that looking at UTV two recent co-productions Lakshya (to be released in June) and Swades (to be released in July/August), he felt there was a lot of potential in this company's films division for his individual as well the company's growth. "I personally believe that Ronnie Screwvala is a dynamic personality with a vision to succeed. And I wanted to be a part of that vision. I am going to put all my experience of working in the entertainment industry to the best possible use," he asserts.

Khan says he would be involved with the ideation and the commissioning of the new projects. After Swades, UTV is getting into solo productions, say industry sources.

About his tenure at Applause, Khan says,"I loved my entire stint at Applause and have no complaints to make. I learnt how a corporate structure works. Recently, I was involved with two prestigious projects- Govind Nihalani directed Dev which is complete and Sanjay Leela Bhansali directed Black which is 50 per cent complete. The reason for the switch over is only due to better prospects."

Asked about the buzz that the programme Bollywood Tonight (which is produced by Applause for Zee Cinema) was going off air, Khan denied. "It is not going off air, but yes, it will be not a daily and but a weekly from here on. Sonali Varma will be doing the anchoring as she presently does. I left the anchoring about five months back, and thereafter, was involved with only the production work. Now of course, I will not be involved with its production work too," he concluded.