By SONALI KRISHNA
Indiantelevision.com Team

MUMBAI: A "stop-gap" that has been in effect since June on the ad sales front at Star News is soon set to end. The news channel has roped in Prabal Ganguly, Sony's V-P ad sales west and south, as its sales head.

According to confirmed industry sources, Ganguly is due to join Star News in January. Ganguly has been with Sony for the last ten years.

Ganguly will be taking over from Shanti Rao, who has been functioning as head of sales at Star News since June, which was when Star network head of sales Kevin Vaz had instituted a restructuring in his team. Vaz had said at the time that in due course a national head for Star News would be recruited to whom Rao would report.

Rao, will however, not be reporting to Ganguly as was the original plan. After a transitionary "handing-over" period, Rao will move back to the main network in a role that is still to be decided, information available with indiantelevision.com indicates.

Interestingly, Ganguly will be reporting directly to Star News CEO Uday Shankar and the ad sales section of Star News will be functioning as an independent unit and not a part of the Star network, the sources aver.

Star News although, has always been a separate entity but previously, the ad sales of Star News reported to Vaz.

The move for Ganguly to report directly to Shanker come from the fact that the news channel is exploring different avenues and is slated to launch a number of news channels across different genres and regions. Hence, it will be functioning as a separate unit and handling ad sales independently.