Using one's own serial for advertising

For a person not familiar with the goings-on in the media industry, this was pretty interesting in terms of strategy. In the past, on Star Plus, I have normally seen that when a new serial is about to be introduced, the buzz for the serial starts on the channel much before in terms of teasers and ads. Which is all well and fine. But, when a regular 30 minute serial is taken, which already has time cut due to ads, explanation of what happened in the serial in the past, we are left with around 20 minutes. And now, here is what Balaji Telefims did.
Balaji Telefilms makes popular teleserials appearing at prime time, at the 10 - 11 PM slot on Star Plus. It also was the producer of the recent movie called 'Shootout at Lokhandwala', with a large star cast - namely, Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Vivek Oberoi, Suniel Shetty, Arbaaz Khan, and gentleman called Tusshar Kapoor (who incidentally happens to be the brother of the main person behind Balaji Telefilms (Ekta Kapoor)).
I am not going to do a review of the movie here, but recent comments from people who have seen it was not very complimentary. So here I was watching this serial at prime time, and what do I suddenly see ? A discussion suddenly started on watching a film, and what do you observe ? One character telling the other than a good movie to see is 'Shootout at Lokhandwala', having some excellent characters and with some very good performance by Tusshar Kapoor.
Now, Ekta Kapoor is entitled to praise whom she wants in her serials, but it was very strange. Such open promotion of a movie seems almost mercenary, given that the script (if any) of the serial would have to be changed to accomodate this praise. Other people present in the room had that strange look in their face, 'How did that dialogue get in there?'. And then burst out laughing when this strange incident in the episode finally ended.
I wonder whether Star Plus was actually a party to this ? I do not know how they would benefit from such open advertising ? Somehow I ended up comparing serials that show up on the English side, and I have never seen anything like this, so maybe this is an Indian innovation. Did people notice this particular scene ?