News Broadcasting
China National Radio’s web portal launches soccer site
MUMBAI: International media content provider Global Broadcast Networks (GBN), and China National Radio’s (CNR) web have launched a UK football website in Mandarin.
The website covers UK Football, and will support the programmeUK Soccer Review for which GBN provides content, sponsorship and advertising. The programme is broadcast on CNR Voice of China which claims to be the most listened to radio station in the world.
The website will be hosted by CNRNET, China National Radio’s portal. There is a link from CNR’s homepage to the website, which attracts around one million unique users per day.
China National Radio Website Centre head Yang Guiming says, “CNRNET’s dedicated website for UK Soccer Review is a veritable feast of UK soccer for web users, meticulously produced in
collaboration with CNR-1 Voice of China and GBN . CNRNET is delighted to be working with GBN, to provide first-hand information from the UK, bringing abundant content to the “UK Soccer Review / Yingchao Fengyunlu” website.”
“CNRNET is hosted by CNR, the national-level radio station in China, which possesses a distinct broadcasting style. It is China’s largest audio broadcasting website, and via the Internet, strives for China’s voice to be heard worldwide”
The website’s total audio data is two terabytes. At present, with an average of 14 million hits a day, and unique visitors reaching one million a day, CNRNET’s influence is always expanding.”
GBN CEO Sean Curtis-Ward says, “The launch of the website opens up a unique and hitherto unavailable opportunity for our programme sponsors to reach a vast audience. The site
and the radio programme will cross-promote and complement each other. The link on CNRNET’s front page is a ringing endorsement of the programme. We are grateful for the skill and technical expertise that China National
Radio’s web team have bought to the design and implementation of this
project”
Sky Media have also been appointed to provide advertising and sponsorship services for the website along with advertising and sponsorship
of the UK Soccer Review programme on a global basis. The weekly half-hour radio is on-air 52 weeks a year, for a planned three years.
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.
