News Broadcasting
Tony Lai new MediaCorp MD, Experiences and Outreach
New Delhi, 22 May: Tony Lai has been appointed Managing Director, Experiences and Outreach, for MediaCorp from 3 June 2013, according to the announcement in Singapore.
In his new appointment, Tony will report to MediaCorp CEO Shaun Seow, looking after events, out-of-home, retail and business-to-consumer businesses.
Tony started his career with the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) and moved on to various public and private sector roles, before re-joining STB as its Assistant CEO in 2009. Prior to his re-appointment at STB, he was Managing Director of The Idea Factory, an innovation-focused strategy consulting business.
Earlier, MediaCorp’s Suat Jien Lim, Managing Director, Television, had resigned with effect from 7 April. Her resignation came a year after she assumed the MD role, increasing her portfolio of Channel 5 and okto to overseeing programming and promotions for the entire portfolio of free-to-air channels under the broadcaster – Channels 5, 8, U, okto, Suria, and Vasantham; with the exclusion of the news channel Channel NewsAsia.
News Broadcasting
Senior media executive Madhu Soman exits Zee Media
Former Reuters and Bloomberg leader says he leaves with “no regrets” after brief stint at WION and Zee Business
NOIDA: Madhu Soman, a veteran of global newsrooms and media sales floors, has stepped away from Zee Media Corporation after a short stint steering business strategy for WION and Zee Business.
In a reflective LinkedIn note marking his departure, Soman said his time within the network’s corridors was always likely to be brief. “Some chapters close faster than expected,” he wrote, signalling the end of a nearly two-year spell in which he oversaw both editorial partnerships and commercial strategy.
Soman joined Zee Media in 2022 after more than a decade abroad with Reuters and Bloomberg, returning to India to take on the role of chief business officer for WION and Zee Business. His mandate was ambitious: bridge the newsroom and the revenue desk while expanding digital and broadcast reach.
During the stint, Zee Business reached break-even for the first time since its launch in 2005, while WION refreshed programming and strengthened its digital footprint across platforms such as YouTube and Facebook.
But Soman suggested the cultural fit proved uneasy. Describing himself as a “cultural misfit”, he hinted at deeper tensions between editorial instincts shaped in global newsrooms and the realities of India’s television news ecosystem.
Before joining Zee, Soman spent more than seven years at Bloomberg in Hong Kong as head of broadcast sales for Asia-Pacific, expanding the company’s news syndication business across several markets. Earlier, he held senior editorial roles at Reuters, overseeing online strategy in India and managing Reuters Video Services from London.
His career began in television and wire reporting, including a stint with ANI during the 1999 Kargil conflict, before moving into digital publishing as India’s internet media landscape took shape.
Now, after nearly three decades in broadcast and digital media, Soman is leaving Delhi NCR and returning to his hometown, Trivandrum.
Exhausted, he admits. But unbowed. And with one quiet line that sums up the journey: he didn’t sell his soul — because some things, after all, are not for sale.
