News Broadcasting
Al Jazeera International launches Wednesday; not available in India
MUMBAI: There’s just a day left for the official launch of Al Jazeera International, the English language sibling of the sometimes controversial Arabic language channel Al Jazeera.
Al Jazeera International will kick off its inaugural broadcast from its headquarters in Doha, Qatar at 12 GMT tomorrow.
In English-language markets, the channel will beam down from the Astra and Eurobird satellites to DSat homes in the UK; the Globecast platform in the US; Optus in Australia; and foreign-language platform Orcus in New Zealand, informs an official release.
Interestingly, though India has been identified as a potential market, the channel will not be available in the country after the Union Home Ministry informed that the Qatar-based Arab news channel will not be allowed to register an office in India, thereby restricting its plans to beam into the country.
The government had asked the channel to go off air six months ago on account of not conforming to the downlinking guidelines by 10 May. Al Jazeera had submitted an application to the company affairs ministry for registration of a company in India, as stipulated by the government for channels uplinking from overseas and seeking to downlink into the country.
While the I&B ministry cleared the application, the home ministry, however, declined the application citing security considerations. According to a media report, the ministry, in a letter dated 14 September, specified that the company should not be permitted to deal in the business of providing news.
Earlier this year, information and broadcasting minister PR Dasmunsi had clarified that the reason Arab television channels like Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabia, QTV had gone off air was because they had not applied for downlink permission in India.
Broadcast across the globe, Al Jazeera English will far exceed its original launch target of 40 million cable and satellite homes. It will be distributed across all continents throughout the world and in addition to cable and satellite will be available on broadband IPTV, ADSL, terrestrial and mobile phone platforms.
Not surprisingly the channel has got a very limited distribution in the US after it was “blanked” by big satellite players like News Corp’s DirecTV and Charlie Ergen’s Echostar and cable giants like Comcast and Time Warner. Al Jazeera English will only be available to subscribers of the GlobeCast Network – a subsidiary of France Telecom that carries channels from all parts of the world and services mainly non-Americans.
Among the European satellite and cable platforms to carry the channel are Canal Sat and TPS in France, Kabel Deutschland and Kabel BW in Germany, HK Broadband in Hong Kong, YES TV in Israel, Sky Italia, Astro Malaysia, Canal Digital in The Netherlands, ORCUS in New Zealand, Canal Digitaal in Nordic Region and Sky Guide 514 in United Kingdom.
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.
