News Broadcasting
IBF member suggests separate panels for pay, FTA channels
NEW DELHI: Pay broadcasters who are members of Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) want that the organization should have separate panels for free to air channels and pay channels in order to avoid lack of consensus on controversial issues like conditional access and the proposed limitation of advertising time on pay channels
This is one of the compromise formulae that is being touted in the wake of differences in the business interests of pay and FTA channels. It is seen as a practical way to allow the IBF to be able to fairly represent the interests of both pay and FTA broadcasters. The matter came to the fore last year with a show cause notice being issued to a representative of an FTA channel for taking a stand different from that of the collective wisdom of the IBF.
A broadcaster-member of the IBF, which controls some of the most paying pay channels in India and has also been described as the biggest media company in India at various points of time, is understood to have written to the IBF secretariat on the need to have panels with separate agendas for various type of broadcasters operating in India.
It has been pointed out by a senior representative of this broadcasting organization that on some key issues, the viewpoint of pay and FTA channels are unlikely to match. Hence, there should be two panels or sub-committees in the IBF looking after the interest of these broadcasters separately.
It has also been suggested that when representations and submissions are made to the government and the sector regulator, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), these two separate panels would be useful in putting across the respective viewpoints more forcefully without attempting to seek an across the board consensus, which is seldom achieved or when achieved, the arguments get diluted.
However, it is not clear to indiantelevision.com at this point of time whether this issue is likely to be discussed in a board meeting of the IBF, slated to be held on 10 August, a day when the board of Prasar Bharati, too, is meeting to take up some important issues. Though not directly related, it may be worth noting that a finance panel of the Board of Control for Cricket in India will also be holding its own meeting on 10 August.
The member of the IBF that has mooted the proposal of having two separate sub-panels within the IBF has also argued that it is necessary to have such a set-up as, for example, it would be difficult to slot some of the members like Indian pubcaster Doordarshan. Is DD a pay broadcaster or a free to air one?
Questions like these have started haunting the IBF because of conflicting business interests of broadcasters.
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.
