News Broadcasting
Dubai TV signs Barco for backdrop display in new studio
MUMBAI: Dubai TV, which is investing in a new television studio with cutting-edge high-tech equipment in the Dubai Media City, has signed on Barco to provide iPresent – its high-quality backdrop display solution, featuring high resolution, excellent on-camera performance, superior flexibility and high interactivity.
Three Barco iPresent walls have been installed in the studio that was inaugurated in June this year.
Dubai, which is at the crossroads of the Middle East, Africa and South Asia, is rapidly emerging as a global media hub. Dubai TV’s newsroom is centered around an impressive multi-stage, multi-floor set design and includes studio facilities and state-of-the-art audio-visual and IT technology as well as dynamic news production equipment.
The studio includes six different sets for main international news bulletins, international news briefs, sports news, political programmes, talk shows and debates, current affairs, local news briefs, dynamic stand-up locations, weather and guest programmes.
Barco installed two backdrop walls of 4×2 modules and one of 3×2 modules, each consisting of 50″ projection modules with XGA resolution and the latest DLPTM technology. The iPresent backdrop solution consists of specifically adapted rear-projection modules allowing Dubai TV to use the wall as a high-quality alternative for a traditional on-stage video wall.
“One of the main issues that we have always had with video walls in the past is that the minute a lamp goes out, it’s very difficult to calibrate the monitor so you can’t retain the same color temperature and video levels as the others,” explains Broadcast Design International’s Mark Karlen.
“But the Barco solution installed at the newsroom is a new, sophisticated solution that uses a dual lamp system. The minute one lamp goes out, another instantly lights up in its place and within two to three seconds, the internal software automatically calibrates the brightness level to match the rest of the cubes on the wall.”
“All the equipment you see in the newsroom has been purchased specifically for this project. There is no old material, upgraded or retrofitted equipment here,” says Karl Hijazi. He adds that the solution at the newsroom is flexible and can be adapted and grown so that in the future, they will be able to expand, and that the system enables Dubai TV with a 24-hour news channel, which is their ultimate goal.
The Dubai TV Newsroom was planned, designed and created in just four months. “This was a real challenge, because, normally operational efficiency drops during installation. But we worked very closely with Intertech Vision Middle East, our business partner in Dubai, and Mr Hassan Chahine from Dubai TV. We’ve put a lot of effort into the project management side of things and the planning to ensure that we counteracted those risks,” explains Barco director market development Johan Quartier.
“Our goal is to be the number one Pan-Arab station in the next two years,” says Dubai Media Inc. CEO Hussein Lootah. More than 20 new programmes that have been produced locally have been included into the schedule. Presenters and hosts include prominent political scientists like Dr. Abdulkhaleq Abdulla and Dr. Mohammed bin Huwaidin, stars like Dina Al Sharaf and Khalid Al Marri and Arab TV personalities like Lina Sawan, Marianne Klat, just to name a few.
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.
