Within a month of Viacom 18's GEC channel Colors losing its CEO Rajesh Kamat, Turner General Entertainment Network's (TGEN) GEC channel Imagine has lost its CEO Sameer Nair.

After Nair's exit, Imagine's operations will be fully integrated into Turner Broadcasting System Asia Pacific (TBSAP). Steve Marcopoto, president of TBSAP, said, "While Imagine has enjoyed some significant successes in distinctive programming and built a solid audience base for a young channel in an extremely competitive genre, we need to improve the channel's overall performance and best position it for sustainable long-term growth."

"Sameer and I agree that the best way to achieve this end is for him to move on and merge the entertainment work TGEN with TBSAP," Marcopoto added.  

Nair in his statement said, "It's been an incredible entrepreneurial experience for me these past four years, building a brand and team Imagine and competing in the market place."

Imagine will be placed under the interim management of Sunny Saha, SVP & GM for the entertainment networks of TBSAP, and the Turner India management team with transitional support from Sameer in the coming months.

A peek into Nair's career makes one realizes he has had a rather circuitous career journey, having traversed various paths including selling space in Yellow Pages, working for a Chennai-based ad agency, Gold Wire, having a go at cinema as an independent filmmaker to finally being one of the most influential persons in the Indian television entertainment space.

His tryst with television started in 1994 with Star TV, where he began as a director-producer for Star Movies, Star's English movie channel. Nair's job was essentially to create snippets of content revolving around Bollywood personalities, including interviews, behind-the-scenes and on-location shoots. From here on, Nair steadily moved up the ladder within Star. He was first moved into the main programming team and then was made head of on-air promos for Star Plus. In 1999, Nair went on to become head of programming for Star Plus, which was then lagging far behind Zee TV and Sony.

It was the year 2000 that turned around both Star as well as Nair's career fortunes. This was the year when Indian television saw one of the most dramatic audience-gathering strategies being undertaken by Nair and Star. Nair unveiled the entry of superstar Amitabh Bachchan to television as the host of quiz show Kaun Banega Crorepati, the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire.