News Broadcasting
Italy relaxes media rules; critics cry foul
MUMBAI: Italy’s parliament has cleared a controversial media law that was earlier vetoed by president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. Having undergone some minor alterations, the law was passed by the parliament on Thursday. Under Italian law, Ciampi cannot veto them again.
The new law will see prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s firm Mediaset taking over 90 percent of Italy’s television broadcasts, and gives him freedom to acquire more newspapers and radio stations.
The long-in-the-works rules raise the cap on broadcast advertising and ease limits on how many stations each TV player can own. Besides putting a 20% cap on the total share of the media market revenue that a single company can hold — instead of a 30% cap placed solely on TV revenue — the new law will allow cross-ownership of webs and newspapers in 2010 and optimistically sees Italy shifting to terrestrial digital TV by 2006, say media reports.
The law also authorises a partial privatisation of pubcaster RAI starting next year. Critics suggest that the law will give Berlusconi an undue advantage that will see him dominating the country’s media.
Berlusconi’s $7.8 billion family holding firm Fininvest also owns Medusa Film, Mondadori publishing group and the Jumpy Internet portal.
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.
