News Broadcasting
ESS selects Omneon MediaGrid and Spectrum for tapeless production environment
MUMBAI: TOmneon Video Networks has announced that ESPN Star Sports (ESS) has purchased a MediaGrid active storage system and Omneon Spectrum media server systems.
This will serve as the core of a new production system capable of handling 2,000 hours of media at 50 MB/s. The storage and server implementation, which is being designed and supplied by UK-based systems integrator TSL, will support a new file-based environment and a much more flexible and collaborative production workflow for the network’s live sports and sports news coverage.
Combining grid storage and grid computing through the use of multiple intelligent, interconnected-yet-independent storage servers, the Omneon MediaGrid system dramatically enhances the efficiency of digital media access for users and applications across the entire broadcast workflow. The MediaGrid system provides centralized shared storage that is scalable in capacity, bandwidth, and media processing power.
The modular MediaGrid system uses industry-standard components and connectivity to create a highly configurable, reliable, and cost-effective system. Components of the system communicate over standard Ethernet networks and generate massive aggregate bandwidth that is available to external clients of the system, eliminating bottlenecks associated with traditional shared-storage environments. Each storage component is also a media-processing engine, making computational resources available to applications for media-processing functions while content resides within the storage system.
The Omneon-based storage system will be managed by an OmniBus OPUS News & Sports Logging system and deliver archive content to a new Front Porch Digital DIVArchive system. The initial system build and test of the overall production system at ESS is scheduled for January 2007.
ESS senior VP, operations and technology Tom McVeigh says, “In the fast-moving world of multiregion, multilanguage live sports, we need technology that allows us to enhance the offerings we provide to our viewers. Omneon’s storage solutions are flexible, scalable, and future-proof systems we can rely on to deliver cost-effective storage for our production environment.
“The MediaGrid will integrate well with our existing systems and with other new gear to enable a complete overhaul of our production workflows. It is one of the more critical pieces in this puzzle, and it will play a key role in enabling us to achieve our overall project objectives.
ESS is moving from a totally tape-based production environment to a fully server-based environment, which will allow the network to establish far more rapid turnaround of sports content to its 13 television networks. The project, dubbed Home Run will incorporate the Omneon MediaGrid system and four Omneon Spectrum media servers equipped with 50 I/O ports and linked directly to 25 Apple Creative Studio systems, equipped with Final Cut Pro® nonlinear edit systems, to enable immediate edit-in-place capability at multiple workstations simultaneously. Within this collaborative workflow, production staff will not only gain faster access to media, but also gain the ability to view and work with other packages under production.
TSL head of sales Russell Grute says, “The timely and accurate production of sports content for 13 channels broadcast in four languages to 26 countries presents an enormous technical challenge. Omneon’s storage systems in conjunction with OmniBus’ Opus will greatly enhance the capacity, flexibility, and speed of operations at ESS, enabling the new Home Run system to offer a faster and more collaborative workflow. A whole new approach to production and media lifecycle management for a busy sports and news broadcaster like ESS.”
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.
