Industry bigwigs congratulate Uday Shankar and Punit Goenka

Much praise was showered on them by leaders from various industries on the day. This included industry veterans like Sam Balsara, Chairman & MD of Madison World, Mahesh Samat, Founder & MD of Epic Television, Shashi Sinha, CEO of IPG Mediabrands India and Sandip Tarkas, President (Customer Strategy) of Future Group who heaped praise on Uday Shankar and Punit Goenka. Balsara, also one of the nominees for IMPACT Person of the Year 2014, said the two winners were highly deserving of the awards. “I would like to first congratulate Uday (Shankar). I actually thought he had started as a TV journalist, today I came to know that he had started with Times of India. It is incredible how he has moved on from being a journalist to a business strategist and sort of done so well for himself and his company. That is really remarkable and creditable. I think Punit (Goenka)’s achievement is no less. At a very young age he took over ZEEL and when it was not in the best of health. He took it over in his father’s shadow but I think he has quickly emerged as a man of his own right. He has done very well for Zee, Zee stands as a very successful group of channels that hold their own, they have their own philosophy and yet they do very well in viewership terms. So my hearty congratulations to both these very eminent broadcasters,” he said. Samat, who has recently launched his own channel Epic, said, “Both Punit and Uday are deserving winners of the Person of the Year and Person of the Decade from IMPACT. Both of them have made a huge amount of contribution to television, to the industry. They have brought about a lot of change and worked really hard in the industry bodies to get some sense of unity and propulsion to all the changes that we have got.” Tarkas while offering his congratulations outlined their contribution to the broadcast industry through BARC. “I think both of you really deserve it. I think both of you have been the reason for the biggest change now with the BARC formation and what is going to happen after that is going to be the biggest drivers for the industry in the future,” he added. Sinha conveyed his best regards to the two for winning the awards and this immense contribution to the industry. He further said, “It is a very happy day as two of the best guys in the business, Uday Shankar and Punit Goenka, if I may add, very good friends of mine, are winning this award.”Click here to watch the video