It was facing the problem of large senior exits and in some cases, exits of entire departments. If Shankar didn’t hear it already, newspapers and friends from the industry informed him that he was walking into what many were referring to as the ‘sinking ship’.īy about 2007, from an unbeatable force, STAR had become a company struggling to move forward. After two of STAR’s top leaders exited the company, News Corp handpicked Shankar, then CEO of its news JV, Media & Content Communication Service that runs STAR News, to take on the reigns of STAR India. The Network faced many challenges but the most pronounced one surfaced in 2007, when it was witnessing a change in its leadership. Not that STAR India has not experienced absolute leadership in the past - STAR’s glory was at its peak for a good portion of the early 2000s and for nine years, STAR Plus, the crown jewel of the network, was ruling the charts, by very large and later, smaller margins. ‘Innovate’ may just be the keyword in the STAR India story, specifically in the last five years. “Risks are inherent, when you are looking to innovate,” Shankar tells exchange4media, reflecting on STAR’s journey in the last few years.
Before closing the year, STAR India re-launched STAR One as Life OK and established once again that it was not one to shy from experiments and take risks.
Channel finally succeeded where others failed and proved that if the right content was served, music channels could be more than just bold reality shows on TV. STAR Gold’s repositioning not only catapulted it to number one position in its category but challenged several norms of the Hindi movies genre. STAR Plus held on to its numero uno spot amongst Hindi general entertainment channels. The year 2011 in particular had carried forward the growth legacy of the company to bring it to this position. STAR India has already stepped into its next growth level. The company’s revenue today is pegged in the vicinity of Rs 4,500 crore, making it one of the largest, if not the largest, media companies in India. In the last three years, STAR India’s revenue has doubled and profit has more than doubled. In the company’s Annual Report 2010, Murdoch stated “STAR India saw particularly robust advertising growth and we continue to develop market-leading capabilities in that important and burgeoning region”. But for Shankar, such a mention is no longer new in a News Corp global business review. “Advertising revenues at STAR India were in-line with the prior year, as strong local currency advertising revenue growth was offset by the impact of the weakening Indian Rupee”: In a nutshell, this statement by Rupert Murdoch in the News Corporation earnings release for the quarter ended December 31, 2011, summed up the performance of STAR India in a year that many had termed as ‘tough’ for the Indian media industry.
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