Tuesday, January 16, 2007

The continuity at STAR TV

While the media (and Rupert Murdoch and Paul Aiello) go into a tizzy trying to anticipate the changes at STAR India and STAR Hong Kong, for one man sitting in Mumbai, it’s déjà vu.
He joined STAR when it was run by the original owner, Hutchison Whampoa. He started his STAR stint under Siddharth Ray, as virtually a one-man ad sales team. He’s seen Peter Mukerjea come into the picture after Murdoch bought out Li Ka Shing. He’s worked in a STAR India with Andrew Carnegie, Gene Swinstead and Rathikant Basu. He’s seen them all come and go.
He’s been around when Richard Li, Michael Dunlop, James Murdoch were there, when Gareth Chang was there, when Gary Davey was there, when Michelle Guthrie was there. He’s still around as Paul Aiello takes over.
And, as question marks hang over the futures of Peter Mukerjea and Sameer Nair in STAR, he’s still around, quietly occupying a corner room in STAR India’s Mumbai office, doing whatever is demanded of him – managing relationships with the press, with other corporates, and critical stakeholders.
And the dust at STAR will settle sometime this week, and he’ll still be around.
Yashpal Khanna, who has done more time at STAR than any other human being on earth (as far as I know). Almost 15 years.
Chew on that one.

1 comment:

Leonard G said...

Grreat post