News Broadcasting
BBC’s head of JVs and new channels Olga Edridge steps down
MUMBAI: BBC Worldwide director joint venture and new channel development Olga Edridge will exit the corporation by the end of May. A seasoned journalist, Edridge oversaw the corporations’ international joint-venture channels like Animal Planet and People + Arts.
According to media reports, it was Edridge who forged the joint-venture channels with Alliance Atlantis in Canada, launching BBC Canada and BBC Kids, the BBC’s first international children’s channel. She also executed the JV deals with Japan’s Jupiter Communications and CTV Canada for expanding the DCI joint-ventures into those markets.
Before her stints at BBC Worlwide, Edridge created the BBC’s joint-venture UKTV with Flextech. UKTV now comprises 10 channel brands, and for the first time this year started paying cash back to BBC Worldwide. The UK pubcaster also has a joint-venture with FremantleMedia/Foxtel called UKTV Australia.
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.
