News Broadcasting
Hathway set to launch channel for Bangalore
Rajan Raheja promoted Hathway Cable & Datacom, a cable TV network in which Star India has a 26 per cent stake, will soon be launching C- Bangalore, a local channel for the city of Bangalore.
Though officials would not put a definite date for the launch, if all goes according to plan, C- Bangalore is expected to star airing before the end of next week. The channel, to be broadcast through Hathways cable network, will be exclusive to subscribers in the city. Hathway claims a strong presence in Bangalore with a substantial market share in the city.
Programmingwise, the channels main focus will be on local & regional content. Its 16 hours of programming daily will have three movies daily in Tamil, Kannada and Hindi supplied by Hathway’s own library. C-Bangalore also plans to have live programmes like talk shows & music shows. These will be interactive in nature with the viewer getting to put forth his requests and questions online.
Channel telecast will be from Hathways headend located at Shree Complex, St. Johns Road in Bangalore. This state of the art head end went operational in August 2001, officials say. The headend provides more than 75 channels to the entire city with a single headend infrastructure backed with a fiber optic ring.
Hathway also provides broadband internet (Hathway Cable Internet) through its network and has more than 1,000 cable Internet subscribers in the city. The service is being made available to corporate houses, educational institutes, cyber cafes, SOHOs & residences. Currently Hathways Internet service is available in Koramangla, Fraser Town, MG Road, Cook Town, Ulsoor, Basavangudi, Jayanagar, & Banashankari areas of Bangalore.
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.
