News Broadcasting
Anti-CAS PIL hearing postponed till Friday
NEW DELHI: Delhi’s cable fraternity is breathing a sigh of relief following the postponement of a hearing on a public interest litigation (PIL) in a Delhi court till 19 December.
Now the industry has got time till Friday to chalk out a strategy on CAS (conditional access system).
The joint petition was filed yesterday by Consumer Coordination Council (CCC), a coalition of 50 consumer bodies and Consumer Online Foundation (COF) set up by lawyers.
The first hearing which was scheduled earlier today could not be heard by the court as the counsel for the petitioners was not fully prepared and had not arrived, sources said.
The petitioners have alleged that CAS, in its present form is anti-consumer, and that the government has not woven in proper safety measures for the people before mandating the law.
For example, there is no body or a platform that a consumer can approach if the cable operators don’t provide after-sales and maintenance services for the set-top boxes (STBs) sold to them for addressability.
Seeking a regulatory body like the Telecom Regulatory authority of India (TRAI) to be put in place before CAS is rolled out, the petitioners have said, “On a conservative estimate, CAS under implementation across the 40 million cable and satellite homes has been estimated to cost the consumers nearly Rs 160,000 million with no commensurate benefit to the consumers.”
TRAI has pleaded that the government had acted in a partisan manner by pointing out that “the Act (facilitating rollout of CAS), on the contrary, is unconstitutional, anti-consumer, a burden on the national exchequer and a colorable exercise of power by the respondent (the Union of India through the I&B ministry).”
Meanwhile, having woken up in the morning to this new twist in the tale, the multi-system and cable operators said that “vested interests” were trying to derail the CAS implementation process, something that was showing signs of picking up in South Delhi areas after a not-so-successful playout in Chennai.
The Delhi government’s entertainment tax department also released ads in the dailies today informing consumers about the ‘dos and don’ts of CAS’.
As stated earlier by indiantelevision.com, the cable ops also reiterated yesterday that consumers would continue getting entertainment channels like Star Plus, Sony and Zee TV as usual.
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.
