News Broadcasting
Budget ignores broadcast sector: Anshuman Misra
MUMBAI: Turner International’s MD Anshuman Misra has expressed disappointment with the budget as reagrds the entertainment sector.
He said,” The government has not paid any heed to the requests of the broadcasting industry on service tax issue and raised it is a worrisome factor. Especially for a nascent industry like ours in India. We were hoping that the issue of five per cent tax would be addressed, but not this way. There is also the initial feeling that there is nothing in the budget in the form of duty rationalisation on components for set-top boxes. With conditonal access system regime about to be put in force, it was hoped that keeping in mind the financial burden on the consumers, the government would look into the issue and reduce the duties.”
Misra said that the budget was a letdown in light of the fact that one section of the government had said that the media and entertainment industry would be given a major fillip. On a more positive note, Misra noted that the finance minister touched upon several important factors like health and infrastrucuture and all these bode well for the country in the long run. “It is a forward-looking budget in a way, if we are not narrow enough to think only about our particular industry,” Misra said.
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.
