News Broadcasting
NOTA survey reveals that 2001-2002 not a bad year for TV
SAINT TROPEZ: The news for the television industry was all gloom and doom in 2001-2002, right? Wrong. There was a positive upside to the bad times as far as the business was concerned, according to data released by French audience measurement and survey company Mediametrie, Eurodata TV and IMCA .
The data is part of what is known as the New On The Air (NOTA) survey. The survey covers eight countries: the UK, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, the US and Spain.
The year experienced an overall 35 per cent increase in the amount of new programmes (and an 8 per cent increase in the number of hours) compared with the previous year. In all, 1,117 new titles were launched between September 2001 and end May 2002, compared with 824 new programmes in the previous year, and 926 titles in the course of 1999-2000.
Six of these eight countries reflected the overall trend. The UK had 232 new titles (94 per cent over the previous year) on terrestrial television, Netherlands 190 new titles (a 59 per cent increase), France 185 new titles (a 73 per cent increase), Germany 150 new shows (22 per cent increase), Spain 66 new shows (60 per cent increase) and the US 67 new shows (6 per cent increase). Italian television launched 13 per cent fewer new titles to total 145 while Australia was in the red by 3.5 per cent with 82 new titles.
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.
