News Broadcasting
BBC Worldwide has a new business development head
MUMBAI: BBC Worldwide, the commercial consumer arm of the BBC, has appointed Sandra Braun as its head of New Business Development for Europe, Middle East, India and Africa (EMEIA).
Braun has been promoted to this new position to oversee all the strategic new business development initiatives across TV, publishing, new media and channels in the region. Business areas range from the rapidly developing Video-on-Demand market, broadband and interactive TV to mobile and hand-held devices, digital cinema and website syndication. Sandra will also look at opportunities for sponsorship and cross-promotions in these markets.
According to a release, Braun will reporting directly to EMEIA’s Managing Director Mark Young. She will also work closely with EMEIA’s sales teams across all territories to ensure that the cross-divisional synergies between various businesses are optimised and efficiently implemented. Additionally, she will identify new business opportunities, evaluate their strategic importance for BBC Worldwide and oversee their implementation.
The release also stated that one of Braun’s recent initiatives was to develop the mobile voting service for the Top Of The Pops Awards in the German speaking markets. The scheme involved making available the same voting mechanism across TV, Teletext, Internet and the ‘Top Of The Pops Magazine’ and proved to be very successful.
The release also mentioned that Braun, an MBA degree from the Oxford Brookes University, joined BBC Worldwide in 1998 from her native Germany, where she worked as Foreign Rights Manager with publishers Ullstein Buchverlage.
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.
