News Broadcasting
Delhi cable ops vow to enforce CAS from 15 Dec.
NEW DELHI: Conditional access system, like Banquo’s ghost, just refuses to go away. Just when everybody, including the government, thought it has been given a quiet burial, the issue has resurfaced with the cable industry, at least in Delhi, in a militant mood.
In a meeting of the mutli-system operators (MSOs) and some independent cable operators here today to discuss the future course of action, it was “unanimously decided” that from 14 December midnight all pay channels would be routed through set-top boxes (STBs). This was disclosed by a representatives of an MSO after the 120-minute conclave.
Buoyed by the Delhi High Court order that quashed denotification of the capital from the CAS rollout map, the cable industry is also thinking on the lines that it should factor in the retaining cost of inventory when boxes start to be sold again in the Capital.
Pointing out that the MSOs incurred some cost in holding on to the inventory (STBs) for a few months, Zee Telefilms vice-chairman and head of Siti Cable, Jawahar Goel, today told indiantelevision.com, “The boxes are now likely to cost approximately Rs 4,000 to a consumer.”
This would include the activation cost, plus other sundry expenses incurred by the cable operators like paying eight per cent service tax to the government.
Today’s meeting, held at Essel House (headquarters of Siti Cable in Delhi), was attended by representatives of MSOs like INCableNet, Hathway Datacom, Siti Cable and some independent operators.
The strategy being followed by the cable operators in the south zone of Delhi is to start educating the cable subscribers about CAS and the need for boxes, before the cable industry starts routing all pay channels through boxes from midnight of 14 December.
“Though we would not be advertising in newspapers, but scrolls and CAS-related information would start airing on the local cable operators’ video channels,” Cable Networks Association’s Rakesh Dutta said.
Dutta, along with Siti Cable and two other individuals, had filed a case against the government on denotifying Delhi.
According to Dutta, “We don’t need the government’s mediation any more as CAS in Delhi would decide whether we are really under-declaring our base or the pay channels are over-charging for their services.”
Roop Sharma, a non-cable operator person running a cable organisation (Cable Operators’ Federation of India), feels that nobody can stop CAS from becoming reality. (Though, it’d be interesting to know what transpired when Sharma bumped into senior Star India executives at a History Channel party last evening and, reportedly, discussed CAS.)
Still, some issues need to be ironed out.
Not everybody in Delhi’s south zone may end up getting a digital set-top box, if at all they opted for it. Dutta says that independent cable operators like him cannot afford digital boxes and would go for analog STBs, leaving them open to charges that such boxes can be hacked into.
Then comes the issue of prices of pay channels. The MSOs and broadcasters have not yet started negotiations for Delhi. Even today, Siti Cable’s Goel pointed out that it has not yet been finalised at what prices pay channels would be offered to cable subscribers in South Delhi area.
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.
