News Broadcasting
Two Disney channels to cost Rs 12
MUMBAI: The Mouse has set its price. The two Walt Disney channels, distributed by Star Group in India, will cost Rs 12 a month per subscriber.
The Disney Channel and Toon Disney Channel, to be launched on 17 December, will also form part of Star India’s new bouquet along with Star One and Hungama TV.
“We have fixed the bundled price of the two Disney channels at Rs 12,” Star India executive vice-president of distribution Tony D’Silva tells indiantelevision.com.
According to information available with indiantelevision.com, the a la carte price of the two channels is Rs 10 each. Star One is priced at Rs 10 while Hungama TV costs Rs 6. The bouquet rate is being worked at.
D’Silva, however, says a final call on the individual price of the two Disney channels will be taken on Monday (13 December). Even the rate of the new bouquet will be fixed then, he adds. Star India’s old bouquet of channels include Star Plus, Star Movies, Star World, Star News and National Geographic.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has not allowed the bundling of new channels, which are launched since 26 December, 2003, with the old bouquet. This has led distribution companies like Sony-Discovery and Zee-Turner to pack their new channels in separate bouquets.
With a late distribution agreement with Star Group, Walt Disney has to hurry on the seeding of decoder boxes to ensure a wide reach across the country. The company has set up a regional distribution team to monitor the progress of the channels, but a national head is yet to be announced. Disney officials in India were locked in a series of long meetings with Star executives for over a week to fine tune the distribution strategy in a pay-TV market which is crowded and getting regulated.
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.
