MUMBAI: After Vikas Varma quit 9XM this week to join MTV as creative and content head, the channel's head  of operations Riyaz Amlani too has put in his papers and has joined the Viacom run music and youth channel.

Talking about his movement, Amlani says, We had worked towards making 9XM a successful channel with a different format and today it is a robust channel. I was on a lookout for better opportunities and MTV seems to be a new challenge altogether as the format of the channel is very different from 9XM....

Vikas Verma and Riyaz Amlani appear to making their career shifts  together, since their teaming up in Radio City. Almani was part of the national programming team headed by Varma in 2006. The duo moved on to 9XM in March 2007 and was working on the music channel since its inception. Now, with the turn of events, both have quit 9XM to join MTV.

9XM managed to create a niche for itself playing Bollywood music with animated characters replacing VJs. The channel has been faring well in the music channel category according to TAM stats and Varma had claimed that retaining its top position, 9XM was the only music channel earning profits.

Sources mention that although the music channel is the last survivor from the INX stable, investors are wary of investing in the channel due to absence of big names  There has been a string of big names quitting the parent company INX Media after Indrani and Peter Mukerjea stepped down. INX Media group director - network operations Vynsley Fernandes quit in December 2009, followed by Vikas Verma this week.