The world's largest broadcaster has lost an important executive to Google.  Madhav Chinnappa, who held the title of "Head of Business Development & Rights" at the BBC, is now supposed to help Google News and Google Books find more partners and handle the current lot.

Chinnappa's rather lengthy new title is "Strategic Partner Development Manager, Google News & Books," and he should be well-suited to the position.  The contacts he must have made while working for the BBC will be worth a lot alone.

Chinnappa's experience with negotiating media partnerships needs to be taken into consideration, as well, since he didn't exactly luck into his most recent role at the BBC.  He started at the corporation in 2001, and earned a couple of promotions over the years.

During that time, his duties at one point included negotiating all of BBC News's key agency contracts and looking after key broadcast agency relationships, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Anyway, Google told Robert Andrews that Chinnappa's job will entail "a specific focus on helping publishers get the most out of Google News," which might signal that the company's worried about lawsuits or Rupert Murdoch's "taking stories for nothing" complaints.

Also, the position is in fact new, meaning Google's started to show more interest in this sector for some reason even if those particular threats don't concern it.