News Broadcasting
Apurva Purohit to head Times TV project
MUMBAI: Apurva Purohit, the soon to be former employee of the Subhash Chandra-promoted Zee Telefilms, is joining the Times Group as head of its television project.
Purohit is currently serving out her notice following her resignation as Zee TV president last month and has her last day at the office on 31 January.
When contacted by indiantelevision.com Purohit said, “The final details would be known when I reach there. But my repsonsibilities would include charting out positioning of the entertainment channel(s), detailing the distribution aspects and other things that go to make a TV channel a reality.”
Though Purohit was not ready to spelll out the details, Times sources that as the COO of the TV venture, she would be responsible for more than one channel – one entertainment and one news channel, initially. Purohit, who’ll be reporting to Bennet, Coleman & Co. Ltd. executive director Arun Arora, also did not spell out a time frame for the launch of the proposed channel(s).
“Those things would become clear once I join formally,” she added. Though Purohit’s notice period at Zee Telefilms runs through January till the 31st, industry sources indicated that she’s trying to work out a deal whereby Subhash Chandra’s company lets go of her before the deadline so that she’d get some time off before she plunges headlong again into the media business, probably, from February.
According to the information available with indiantelevision.com, Times Group managing director Vineet Jain is quite gung ho about the TV project and has reportedly pushed the effort into high gear. Some alliance with a UK-based broadcaster is also being talked about in this regard.
A management graduate from IIM Bangalore, Purohit has been in the advertising and media business for nigh on 17 years. She joined Zee in mid-June 2002 from FCB Ulka’s media unit Lodestar where she was media director. Starting with client servicing, Purohit crossed over to media planning in the mid-90s.
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.
