Mumbai: Uday Shankar, President, 21st Century Fox Asia / Chairman & CEO Star India, has been named by Variety amongst the top Global Executives M&E. Variety500 is an index of the 500 most influential business leaders shaping the global $2 trillion entertainment industry.
Updated annually, the Variety500 reflects the accomplishments of its members over the previous 12 months. It features an unranked list of moguls, executives, producers, artists, representatives and financiers across film, television, technology, music, gaming and live entertainment.
They were selected by the Variety’sesteemed editorial board, which conducted extensive research for its selections. Variety 500 has heihlightedUday Shankar’s achievement in driving Star India towards dominanet position in Indian Sports Broadcasting Business and the fastest growing SVOD space.
Variety tweeted about the announcement:
In its citation, Variety wrote:
Uday Shankar: PRESIDENT, 21ST CENTURY FOX, ASIA / CHAIRMAN & CEO, STAR INDIA
21st Century Fox’s Star India Group is the dominant player in his region, with a market valuation of some $14 billion; Uday Shankar is very much determined to keep it that way. While Star’s portfolio of 49 entertainment and lifestyle channels is enormously successful in its own right, it is the 10 sports channels that are the growth drivers.
In 2012, eyebrows were raised when Shankar paid $750 million for Indian cricket broadcast rights through 2018. Shankar knew better than anyone that in India cricket is not just a sport, but a religion and the move reaped handsome dividends. The bidding for the next round of rights is expected to be in the billions.
Shankar is not placing all his bets on cricket. Witnessing a spurt of interest in other sports, he has invested $3.2 billion in Indian soccer, hockey and badminton leagues. Shankar’s other big bet that paid off has been Hotstar, a streaming platform that has been wildly successful in a country with more than 800 million smartphones. Hotstar, that offers both paid and premium content, touched 100 million subscribers in 2016.
It has been a steep rise for Shankar, who began his career as a political journalist for the Times of India before joining Star and climbing to the top of the ladder.
