News Broadcasting
BBC to launch entertainment channel in Japan on 1 Dec
MUMBAI: BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the British Broadcasting Corp, has announced the creation of BBC Japan.
Local Japanese broadcaster Japan MediArk will be distributing the new BBC wholly owned entertainment channel in the country, it was announced last Friday.
BBC Japan, which launches 1 December, will be broadcast on channel 025 of SkyPerfectTV110 on the CS110 degree satellite.
The channel will offer Japanese viewers a mix of comedy, drama, factual entertainment, children’s and learning programming, as well as talk shows and documentaries.
While most of the programs will be subtitled in Japanese, there will be enough English programming that will help Japanese viewers to improve their grasp of the “Queen’s English”, the channel’s distributors aver.
Well known BBC shows such as Fawlty Towers, Ready Steady Cook and Tweenies are among the titles that will be available on the channel.
BBC Japan will be the second channel after well established news channel BBC World on offer in the Far Eastern economic powerhouse.
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.
