News Broadcasting
ITF announces excellent ratings for Davis Cup
MUMBAI: The International Tennis Federation (ITF) has announced that the recent Davis Cup for men by BNP Paribas and Federation Cup for women finals reached over 175 countries in all five continents through television.
Since sport is about national pride it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Spaniards tuned in large numbers to watch Spain defeat the US in the Davis Cup Final The event took place in Seville from 3-5 December. In India the tournament aired on Doordarshan.
The host broadcaster TVE dedicated over 45 hours with different programmes to cover the event. While over three million viewers followed the first two singles matches on the second channel La 2, the Bryan Brothers’ victory the following day in the doubles match was followed by more than three million viewers with market shares of 26.7 per cent on the first channel La Primera.
The deciding fourth rubber on Sunday between Carlos Moyá and Andy Roddick saw 3.1 million viewers flocking to La Primera. The channel thus notched up a 43.8 per cent market share. This is a significant increase from the 36.9 per cent share registered in the fourth match of the Davis Cup final four years ago when Spain won the event for the first time.
The ITF has added that in the always-competitive US market ESPN registered good figures despite the time difference and its delayed coverage of the Final. Among the 25 international broadcasters UK’s BskyB and Russian’s NTV Plus dedicated over 20 hours each while Australia, the 2003 champion, could watch over 30 hours thanks to Fox Sports.
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.
