MUMBAI: Television production house TWI has appointed Carlton Content's former commercial director Martin Baker to take on a similar role with it.

His responsibilities will include overseeing all TWI's contractual relationships with broadcasters and co-production partners. He assumes his position next month..

The 44 year old Baker will also work closely with TWI senior VP- production and business development, Alastair Waddington, and its director of programming and production - Sport, Graham Fry, in relation to all TWI's production business.

This amounts to nearly 9,000 hours a year. And he will have input into the business development arena overseen by Waddington.

TWI has stated that the new appointment reflects its growing activities across not only its traditional heartland of sports programming, but also in the entertainment and factual fields. This expansion into new areas has seen TWI win international awards for its In Colour documentary strand. This was the catalyst for burgeoning international sales of entertainment formats like I'd Do Anything, which has currently been sold or optioned in 24 countries.

TWI was recently appointed as the host broadcaster for the 15th Doha Asian Games 2006, in a joint venture with HBS.

As commercial director at Carlton, Baker was responsible for major deals for UK and international co-production, including a $20m international production fund with PBS. Baker was previously controller of business affairs at Carlton, and before that controller of legal and business affairs at Central TV.