| MUMBAI:
It was Star that first chose an entertainment network CEO to head its news network.
Now the country's lead broadcaster has flipped the coin the other way by giving
its news network CEO operational charge of its entertainment network.
In a decision that was made on Friday, Star News CEO Uday
Shankar has been appointed chief operating officer, Star India,
highly placed industry sources have confirmed to Indiantelevision.com.
Shankar's appointment as COO completes, for the near term
at least, the core leadership team that will lead Star in
the next phase of its evolution following the exits of its
corporate CEO Peter Mukerjea and its operational CEO Sameer
Nair.
 The
executive structure that has emerged is this: Shankar will
directly report in to Star Group CEO Paul Aiello who will
continue to hold additional charge as Star India CEO.
The next rung of leadership below Shankar is the recently
appointed president, strategy and corporate development Vijay
Singh, Paritosh Joshi, president, advertising sales and distribution
and Ajay Vidyasagar, executive vice-president content and
communication (expected to be elevated to president soon).
Joshi has been functioning as president since August 2005,
which was when the two major revenue streams of Star India
- advertising sales and distribution, were consolidated under
one position.
Singh, the former CEO of Sony Music and Tata group company
Tetley Tea's managing director - developing markets, has been
recruited into what the broadcast major terms a newly created
role. Singh will be responsible for developing business directions
for Star India while taking an active role in the company's
venture businesses in India. He will oversee corporate functions
including strategic planning, business development, human
resources, legal, government affairs, MIS, administration
and corporate communications.
Shankar is an economics post graduate from JNU, and is a
news hound to the core, having had stints at The Times
of India, Sunday Mail, India Today, Sahara and Aaj Tak,
before his tenure at Star News as CEO.
Shankar joined Star News in February 2004. Prior to that,
he was the editor and news director of Aaj Tak. He is credited
with having launched Aaj Tak, Headlines Today as well as the
news division of Sahara TV.
A
point worth noting here is that when Star News was launched in 2003, News Corp's
Asian arm chose former Sony Entertainment programming boss and Channel Nine CEO
Ravina Raj Kohli as president. According to some industry watchers, the
choice of Shankar as COO of Star India is not as way out as some might assume.
After all, the oft repeated line nowadays seems to be that it is becoming increasingly
difficult to differentiate between news and entertainment.
A comment made by Sameer Nair in an earlier interaction with
Indiantelevision.com only serves to buttress this argument:
"It is news channels that effectively seem to be competing
with general entertainment channels. And that is not too surprising
if you really think about it. Some of the stuff you get to
see on news channels nowadays is far more bizarre than anything
that Hindi soap writers could ever dream up."
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