News Broadcasting
Government expects pay channels to announce prices ‘very soon’
NEW DELHI: The government today expressed optimism that the stakeholders of the industry would come out with solutions to various contentious issues, including the pricing of individual channels, by tomorrow or “very soon” for a smooth transition to the conditional access regime.
“We are facilitators in this process. If the broadcasters had said they would come back (with the pricing strategy), I have to believe them and think that soon all such issues would get resolved,” information and broadcasting ministry secretary Pawan Chopra today told journalists on the sidelines of a function organised by Doordarshan to launch a new series of CDs to mark 100 years of recorded music in India.
Quizzed on issues of distribution margin and as to who’ll fix the price of the pay channels — the broadcasters or the MSOs — Chopra said, “I am not a marketing person, so I cannot speak on these. But I am sure the people who do business in the industry will sort them out.”
Chopra also said that the government would not mind if some sort of a tiering is done so the consumers get choice at a nominal rate.
“I would say rock bottom price,” the government official added when asked whether the government would prefer tiering of channels or each pay channel being priced at a rock bottom price so as to meet the figure of Rs 200, including the price of the basic tier, that the I&B minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had been quoted as saying would be the monthly cable bill.
Asked specifically whether the government would relent on the transitory phase of six months and allow broadcasters to hold on to invitation price and such similar schemes that long, Chopra said, “Those things have to be looked into as they (the industry players) have been doing business in a certain way that cannot be upset suddenly.”
He also expressed the hope that there would be adequate number of set-top boxes available in the market to see through the transition phase to CAS.
As reported by indiantelevision.com earlier, the I&B ministry officials would meet up with the various stakeholders of the industry tomorrow, including independent cable operators, to take stock of the CAS situation.
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.
