News Broadcasting
Kainthola takes over as executive director in LS TV
NEW DELHI: Indian Information Service officer Bhupendra Kainthola has taken over as the new executive director (programmes) of Lok Sabha Television, filling the vacancy created in January after the termination of services of Sudhir Tandon, without ascribing reason.
Kainthola has been posted to LS TV on deputation for three years. He is an IIS officer of the 1989 batch.
His last posting was as the deputy general manager (media) for the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for the past two years, but he has earlier worked for several years in Doordarshan News in the Mumbai and Delhi kendras. He also functioned in the Press Information Bureau for one year.
The post of the ED (P) has been held as an additional charge first by the executive producer Vartika Nanda-Sahai, and then by the executive director (marketing), Sunit Tandon, who is in the channel on deputation from the National Films Development Corporation.
Sudhir Tandon had retired as deputy director general in August 2005 from the charge of Director of the Delhi Kendra of Doordarshan before joining LS TV. He had received a termination order in late December ending his three-year contract (in just over a year), without assigning any reasons.
The LS TV was first conceived by the Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and offered to Doordarshan.
However, the public broadcaster had demanded financial support for a minimum of 250 employees. Bhaskar Ghose – a former Director General of Doordarshan and also Secretary in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry – was then given the task of running the channel with a strength of less than 80 people.
He was appointed with the designation of media adivsor to the speaker and chief executive of the channel. LS TV was formally launched as a 24×7 channel from July 24, 2006 when the Monsoon session commenced.
Commencing with the Budget session, the channel is now in charge of transmitting the signals to the Doordarshan tower from where these are uplinked. Earlier, this work was being handled by DD staff.
Furthermore, two more studios are coming up to augment the facilities, but sources in the channel told indiatelevision.com that there was no corresponding increase in staff strength which was now just over 100.
The channel still does not have any funds of its own and has to depend on the Audio Visual Unit of the Lok Sabha Secretariat for its expenses and infrastructure.
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.
