Wilks

RJR communications group has announced that it will be consolidating its cable services under one umbrella, to be spearheaded by a newly appointed general manager.

Yvonne Wilks, former head of corporate affairs at telecommunications company Digicel, will rejoin the RJR group in September and assume the role of general manager of the new cable division.

This division will include Television Jamaica Sports Network, Reggae Entertainment Television and Jamaica News Network.

Wilks, who previously worked for seven years as group marketing director for RJR, said she was thrilled to be taking on the "challenging role" after a three-year hiatus from broadcast media.

"It's a challenging role, one that I understand and it's my core competence," she told The Gleaner yesterday. "I understand the culture, I love the people, and the job itself is one in which I really believe I can make a difference, not only to our stakeholders, but the country as a whole."

Wilks said the merging of the three entities would increase the leverage of the cable unit in creating better content and a greater platform for marketing and promotion.

In a release, RJR said Kimani Robinson and Balram Vaswani, founding members and CEOs of RETV and JNN respectively, would continue to play integral roles in their companies. Gary Allen, deputy managing director of the group, said the consolidation of the cable groups would provide significant benefits to each channel, in addition to the general improvement of the group.