News Broadcasting
Cameron Diaz to make travel show for MTV
MUMBAI: MTV has scored a coup with Hollywood actress Cameron Diaz. She has signed up with to present her own travel show for the broadcaster.
The show will see the star addressing environmental issues as she travels with her friends. A report in mtv.com stated that the star’s exploits would include sand surfing in the Chilean desert.
The Charlie’s Angels star will also produce the show, which will highlight how she copes without travel amenities and an entourage. Another report in Billboard.com indicates that Hilary Duff and Foxy Brown are among the seven celebrities with new projects MTV has in development. The Lizzie McGuire Movie star Duff also has a comedy pilot deal with MTV’s stable partner CBS.
Brown will star in the reality themed Foxy’s Family. The show will follow the hip-hop star as she balances the demands of her musical career with the family who helps her run it. Television actor Frankie Muniz who stars in Fox’s Malcolm in the Middle will also host a series for MTV. He comes along for the ride as real-life high school students live out their fantasies. In India Malcolm in The Middle airs on Star World.
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.
