Star India appoints Uday Shankar as its COO

Televisionpoint.com Correspondent
Star India has appointed Star News CEO Uday Shankar as new chief operating officer, COO. Shankar will be joining Star, and will oversee the company's overall operations, reporting to Paul Aiello, CEO of Star India.

Announcing the appointment, Aiello said, "Uday is a highly respected and accomplished television executive with a myriad of experience under his belt. Since joining our news joint venture MCCS, he has overseen the tremendous growth of Star News and the launch of Star Ananda, changing the dynamics of competition within the news space. Uday's in-depth industry knowledge, seasoned business acumen and his established relationship with Star make him the perfect fit for this post. As Star India continues to expand its services across the country, we will look to Uday to build momentum for even further growth and development."

"Uday's elevation is a direct recognition of MCCS's performance as well as his own strong leadership and we see this move as a win-win for ABP and MCCS. We are very proud of and happy for Uday. And what better than to have one of our own lead Star India at a time when we plan to aggressively grow MCCS and expand our highly successful partnership with Star," said Pramath Raj Sinha, MD & CEO of ABP Group.

Shankar said, "It has been a great pleasure working with all the wonderful people at MCCS and I would like to thank everyone, in particular the two shareholders of MCCS, for their support over the last few years. I look forward to continuing to work with the team at MCCS, further strengthening MCCS and ABP's relationship with Star."

"It is truly a thrill to join Star India, the leading media company in the country. The Star India team includes some of the best minds in the media industry and I consider it an honour to work with them as the company grows and expands the business. The C&S industry is experiencing unprecedented growth and I look forward to working with the Star India team to fortify the company's leadership position in this exciting time," continued Shankar.

A veteran in the news business, this will be Shankar's first stint in the general entertainment broadcasting segment. A senior print and television journalist, Shankar joined Star News in February 2004. Prior to that, he was the editor and news director of Aaj Tak. In fact, he launched Aaj Tak, Headlines Today as well as the news division of Sahara TV, it is not yet clear who will replace Shankar at Star News.

The two posts of CEO of Star India held by Peter Mukerjea and CEO of Star Entertainment occupied by Sameer Nair were vacated earlier this year after Mukerjea and Nair put in their papers. Effectively, Shankar will now oversee Star's India operations with the 3 presidents – Ajay Vidyasagar, Paritosh Joshi and the newly appointed Vijay Singh reporting to Shankar.

Recently, Tony D'Silva, Star India's distribution head; Ajay Sharma, legal head; and Shailja Kejriwal, programming head have put in their papers. Senior executives such as Gaurav Gandhi, Juhi Ravindranath and Karan Singh had also parted ways with the leading broadcaster.