News Broadcasting
CNN appoints Jonathan Klein as president of US news group
MUMBAI: Former 60 Minutes executive Jonathan Klein has been appointed as the president of CNN US. Klein has replaced Princell Hair and has been given the responsibility to give CNN the extra boost it needs as the second-ranked all-news channel, behind Fox News.
In the wake of the new appointment, Hair, who is a former Viacom stations group executive and was executive VP and general manager of CNN US, will now hold the newly created position of senior vice president of program and talent development for the entire CNN news group.
“We felt we needed a stronger, more urgent push toward the editorial direction and strategic direction of CNN US,” CNN Group president Jim Walton was quoted as saying in a media report. An upbeat Walton also said that CNN was poised to have its strongest financial year ever, with a leadership position for CNN.com, new plans for CNN Headline News and a strong international business.
Klein is the founder and CEO of The FeedRoom Inc., a high-speed Internet news network and video streamer and has also had a stint as executive vice president of CBS News. In a statement issued by the company, Klein said, “Six years steeped in the digital information industry have helped me understand today’s news consumers in ways never before available to media executives.”
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.
