News Broadcasting
The History Channel to air special series on Rome
MUMBAI/BANGALORE: This month, The History Channel brings its viewers up close and personal with Rome. The civilisation has been ruled by visionaries and tyrants whose accomplishments ranged from awe-inspiring to deplorable.
The broadcaster is featuring a two-hour special series Rome: Engineering an empire and four films Augustus, St. Peter, Nero and Spartacus every Saturday and Sunday at 8 pm. The aim is to to highlight the power, grandeur and conflict of Rome.
Rome: Engineering an empire’s airs on 3 and 4 June at 10 pm. This special two-hour series chronicles the rich history of the Roman Empire from the reign of Caesar in 44 B.C. to its eventual fall around 537 AD, detailing the remarkable works of architecture and technology in between that helped Rome leave an indelible mark on the world.
St. Peter with Omar Sharif in the title role airs on 10 June at 8 pm. The saint changed Roman History. On 17 June at 8 pm viewers can watch Emperor Nero , which reveals the true picture of the lonely, tormented man behind the monstrous mask . This film depicts Nero’s transformation from a pragmatic ruler into a tyrannical monster, who while watching Rome burn on one hand, on the other presented the severed head of an ex-wife to a future wife as a gift, murdered his mother and allegedly burned much of Rome to the ground to make room for a new palace.
Goran Visnjic and Rhona Mitra star in Spartacus, which airs on 24 June at 8 pm. It depicts a legendary slave’s rise from a gladiator to a hero in Spartacus.
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.
