News Broadcasting
BBC Worldwide ties up with Pearson Education for new entity
MUMBAI: BBC Worldwide Ltd and education company Pearson Education have formed a partnership to publish BBC-branded educational products and services under a new imprint called BBC Active.
The partnership will be co-owned by Pearson Education and BBC Worldwide, with BBC Worldwide holding a minority stake, and will sit alongside Pearson’s existing educational publishing businesses. BBC Worldwide will transfer its academic, consumer and English Language Teaching learning businesses to the new partnership, which will provide learning resources for both children and adults at school, college, university and at home in the UK under the BBC Active imprint.
Key existing products and services include:
Foreign language publishing, including Talk, French Experience and Quickstart.
Revision guide and study aid publishing, including Bitesize, ReviseWise, and Ten Minute Top Ups.
Adult personal development, parenting and business books, including Little Angels.
Educational publishing resources to support BBC television and radio programming for schools and Higher and Further Education. Major brands include Barnaby Bear and Magic Grandad (for the primary school market).
The partnership will be granted a first option to license relevant learning market rights in all new BBC properties to which BBC Worldwide has the relevant rights. The new partnership will work within BBC editorial and commercial policy guidelines to ensure that appropriate controls are maintained over BBC intellectual property.
The partnership combines BBC Worldwide’s strengths in intellectual property management and media-based publishing with Pearson Education’s heritage and publishing expertise, global sales and distribution capability, enabling the strategic expansion of BBC brands across the international learning market.
Pearson Education’s president of higher education, schools and professional Rod Bristow said, “Pearson Education and BBC Worldwide are natural partners in educational publishing. The BBC’s intellectual property, expertise with the moving image and its future programming output present us with a wonderful opportunity in a world where teachers are looking for innovative and interactive ways of delivering education. With our publishing expertise and scale, this is a powerful combination. We are looking forward to growing this business together.”
BBC Worldwide’s MD for home entertainment and learning Chris Weller said, “We are excited about this new partnership. The combination of our skills and intellectual property with Pearson Education’s publishing strengths and distribution scale will enable the business to develop and grow in the UK as well as internationally.”
This is the second business venture between a Pearson company and BBC Worldwide. On 30 April 2004, the Penguin Group and BBC Worldwide formed a new venture into which BBC Worldwide transferred its Children’s Books business, BBC Children’s Books, which comprises some of the world’s leading character properties, including Teletubbies, Tweenies, Fimbles and Bob the Builder. The venture allows them to be brought alongside Penguin’s existing children’s publishing portfolio, which includes Spot, Peter Rabbit, Ladybird books and Puffin.
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.
