News Broadcasting
BBC offers its first language podcast in Persian
MUMBAI: BBC World Service’s Persian entertainment programme Rooze Haftom is the first BBC Persian language programme to be available to audiences via a podcast. The podcast provides listeners with the flexibility to listen to a 15-minute highlight how and when they want to at bbcpersian.com.
Behzad Bolour who presents Rooze Haftom said, “It is fantastic that listeners can stay across our arts and entertainment programme at their own leisure. People are leading busier lives and with diverse media choices it’s essential to give them the opportunity to tailor how they listen. This week they are in for a treat because Rooze Haftom will feature Iranian underground music and Iranian death metal!”
BBC World Service New Media’s Kelly Shephard said, “New technologies like podcasting provide an exciting way for our audiences to hear our content and we hope that this first-ever trial of a BBC language programme via podcast will allow an even wider international audience to explore our programmes. It will revolutionise the listening experience.”
Other programmes available in the BBC podcasting trial are the weekly BBC World Service English language technology programme Go Digital, and all documentaries. They are available at bbcworldservice.com/programmes.
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.
