News Broadcasting
Dish TV CEO Sunil Khanna quits
MUMBAI: ASC Enterprises has announced that Dish TV CEO Sunil Khanna has decided to move out of the company on completion of his two-year contract at the KU-band direct-to-home platform, promoted by Subhash Chandra.
According to an official release issued, the Dish TV board had offered Khanna a renewed contract but he has decided to pursue other interests.
Information available with Indiantelevision.com indicates that while Khanna will be “remaining in the broadcast sector, he will be taking up a new challenge”.
Khanna has been with the Zee Group since its inception. He started his career with the group while driving the distribution venture Siticable. He subsequently spearheaded the pay TV business and lead Zee Turner. Before joining Dish TV as CEO, he also had a stint as president of Zee Telefilms.
At Dish TV, his contribution has been in developing and building the first addressable digital platform. During the last 15 months, Dish TV accelerated the process of subscriber acquisition and now is established as the leading digital brand with 1.3 million subscribers.
Dish TV, today offers 160 satellite channels along with other value added services and has string network of 8,000 distributors/dealers.
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.
