Star India won the global broadcast and digital rights of IPL for Rs 16347.5 crore for the next five years, a staggering amount considering the BCCi is in the middle of an administrative crisis.

Star India's online streaming website Hotstar announced its partnership with Arnab Goswami's new venture Republic TV. This would be the first time for an online portal to stream the news channel in India.

CEOs of the top media houses appreciated PM Narendra Modi for energetic and dynamic leadership and expressed optimism about the future of India

Most of the shares were purchased by Balaji Telefilms' promoters - Ekta Kapoor and Shobha Kapoor - and Group CEO Sameer Nair.

The Jury for the International Advertising Association (IAA) India Chapter has chosen the Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of the India Today Group, Aroon Purie, as the 'Editor of the Year'.

\"The deal will allow Star India to strengthen and expand the content brand online while taking the awards platform to the next level\", Star India CEO Uday Shankar said.

\"Every story needs to have a structure. Every story can become big if it is told in the right context,\" says Star Plus GM Gaurav Banerjee.

Quick look at people who made news this past fortnight.

Star India CEO Uday Shankar says the show was never meant to be a profitable property. \"We were defying the traditional definition of entertainment content … [and] prepared to take losses,\" he says.

The fourth edition of this comprehensive work includes a fresh chapter on digital media

A Star India spokesperson claimed Mahabharat has garnered the highest TV ratings among all TV shows of the last three years. The company bet heavily on Mahabharat and is known to have spent close to Rs 20 crore on its marketing alone.

Top Mumbai executives - most of them chairmen, CEOs and managing directors - got together at the Business Today Power Breakfast, in association with the Oberoi Group, to wonder aloud whether they would rather do business in India or overseas.

The new Mahabharat, to run over 128 episodes, is being touted as the country's most expensive TV series - Star has invested Rs 100 crore on the project and spent another Rs 20 crore on marketing the show.

Broadcaster Star India has now bagged telecast rights for the 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2016 Summer Olympics for all South Asian countries. This comes after winning the bid for BCCI rights in 2012 for Rs 3,851 crore.

Advertisers have threatened to withdraw advertising contracts unless broadcasters revert to the weekly TAM reporting system.

Shankar, a quiet, stocky man with close-cropped hair whom you would pass on a busy street without a second glance, has built a formidable TV entertainment empire for News Corp's Rupert Murdoch over the past six years. He opened up with rare candour over two long conversations with me and Senior Editor Shamni Pande.

Uday Shankar, CEO of Star India, spoke about the company's plans in sports broadcasting, his problems with TAM ratings and the mistakes that taught him valuable lessons during two extensive conversations with Chaitanya Kalbag and Shamni Pande.

Star India's Uday Shankar, already top dog in general entertainment, wants to prove his mettle again in sports TV. The hardnosed drive into sports is expected to add fat revenues at Star India.

Uday Shankar, CEO of Star India, who is also the Chairman of the FICCI Media and Entertainment Committee, and Karan Johar, the Co-Chairman, spoke to Business Today's Ajita Shashidhar in an exclusive interview. They held forth on the current state of the media and entertainment industry.

STAR is said to have pre-sold around 80 per cent of the show's ad spots even before it went on air. It earned sponsorship revenues of around Rs 5.3 crore per episode.