News Broadcasting
Aaj Tak taps into rural audience with new show
MUMBAI: National Hindi news channel Aaj Tak is looking at tapping into rural audiences with its new show titled – Aaj Tak Ka Gaon Connection.
The special series is tailor-made for the rural audience connecting India and Bharat like never before.
Rural India is a large, underserved market amounting to around 70 per cent of India’s total population (Census 2011) and contributing to about half of the India’s GDP. The villages in India play a crucial role in not just making or breaking governments but also play a defining role in the economy and growth of the nation as a whole. The rural audience is going through a metamorphosis and is changing at a sociological and cultural level. Understanding the need to give apt coverage to this very important and wide section of India, the channel launched the new show.
With Aaj Tak Ka Gaon Connection, the channel plans to provide a full spectrum of rural news – from hard subjects to inspirational stories, problems, issues and a perspective that is fresh and uniquely rural.
The show will be hosted by senior journalist, lyricist and scriptwriter Neelesh Misra, who is also the founder and editorial director of India’s first ever rural newspaper Gaon Connection.
India Today group CEO Ashish Bagga said, “The launch of Aaj Tak Ka Gaon Connection is just another step that underlines our channel’s thought leadership and the consistent effort to break new ground. The series will fill a long standing void that this vast audience base has been feeling.”
The series will not only keep rural India updated on issues that matter but will also give a glimpse of their world to the viewers across towns and cities.
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.
