MUMBAI: Ten years ago when Uday Shankar was looking for a professional to be his deputy in Star India, he looked outside and roped in Sanjay Gupta a long term Hindustan Lever professional.

Circa 2019,  Shankar did not look for an external executive to replace Gupta who is slated to move onto Google as its country head close to the end of this month.

Rather, Shankar has gone in for an internal resource in the shape of K Madhavan who has successfully built up the regional language network for Star India. Apparently, Shankar in an email to staffers today announced – in a move which we suspected would happen – that Madhavan would be given oversight of the entire Star TV channel bouquet. Shankar said that all those previously reporting to Gupta would now report to Madhavan.

Shankar on his part will temporarily take on complete oversight of the rapidly growing streamer Hotstar. How long this will continue is not clear.

Hotstar has been headless since last year when Ajit Mohan decided to move to Facebook India as its India head.  The chief product head Varun Narang had temporarily taken on its responsibility since then.