News Broadcasting
N-E TV producers protest non-payment of dues by Doordarshan
GUWAHATI: Producers in India’s northeast commissioned by the state-run Doordarshan television channel held a protest rally Wednesday seeking immediate payment of dues totalling Rs 2.6 billion.
“More than 500 producers belonging to the region have not been paid their dues despite submitting their programmes and completing other formalities,” a spokesman of the Northeast Television Producers Guild said.
The demonstrators handed over a memorandum to a senior Doordarshan official in Guwahati.
The spokesman said the ministry of information and broadcasting had commissioned private producers to make several documentaries aimed at projecting the region notorious for insurgency in a positive light.
“The money for the commissioned programme was part of the prime minister’s special package for the northeast and even after completion of programmes, New Delhi is not clearing the payments,” the spokesman said.
“This is against the very essence of the exclusive package. For the people of the region, you need to fight and shout for everything, including your dues,” he added.
Doordarshan authorities here say they are yet to get the funds from New Delhi, and hence the delay.
“We are paying high rates of interest for bank guarantees required by us to acquire the commissioned programmes. Non-payment of our dues by Doordarshan is adding to our woes,” complained M. Das, a young producer.
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.
