News Broadcasting
Sun’s Ushe TV climbing ratings charts in Karnataka
MUMBAI: The southern leader claims another win.
The Sun Network that is riding a high with Tamil channels Sun and KTV, has now announced that its second Kannada channel – movies-centric Ushe TV – is steadily adding on ratings week by week to its fold.
Quoting the latest TAM (rest of Karnataka) figures, Sun says Ushe TV has a 15 per cent weekly audience share in the C&S 4+ segment for the week ended 26 October, just behind its sibling from the Sun fold, Udaya – a market leader with a channel share of 22 per cent.
ETV Kannada is in third spot at seven per cent. For the week ended 19 October, the percentage share in the same segment stands at Ushe TV 15 per cent, Udaya TV 26 per cent and ETV Kannada five per cent, claims the network.
Even in Bangalore, a cosmopolitan city, Ushe TV is able to maintain a steady audience share of five to six per cent, claims the channel. The total market audience share for entire Karnataka for the past six weeks in the C& S segment indicates percentage shares between 12 to 16 per cent for Ushe TV, 22 to 26 per cent for Udaya TV and 5 to 8 per cent for ETV Kannada.
The network claims that niche programming, a fine collection of movies, live interactions with the viewers and high quality transmission are the factors that are wooing Kannadigas to Ushe TV.
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.
