Behind all the flash bulbs and sobbing -- yes, I heard at least one journalist let out a star-struck wail at the sight of Shahrukh Khan descending from the podium -- at yesterday's premiere of My Name is Khan at Emirates Palace was a quiet little business story. The film is being distributed through a partnership of Fox Star Studios, a joint venture between India's Star TV and News Corp, and Imagenation Abu Dhabi, a wholly owned subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Media Company, which also owns and publishes The National.

Shahrukh Khan, lead actor of the movie My Name is Khan, was in Abu Dhabi yesterday to promote the world premiere of the film. (Rich-Joseph Facun / The National)

It marks the second time in less than a year that ADMC has partnered with a News Corp subsidiary. The first was the launch of the National Geographic Abu Dhabi channel, a partnership between ADMC's television arm and National Geographic Channels International, a joint venture between the National Geographic Society and News Corp.

It's certainly hard to swing a cat these days in the media world without hitting something owned by News Corp, but there may me more to the story that that. Rupert Murdoch is co-chairing the Abu Dhabi Media Summit in March, which ADMC is sponsoring. If more of these partnerships happen to emerge from that conference, this reporter -- who, I have to emphasize, has no inside knowledge of any of this -- won't be surprised.