News Broadcasting
James Murdoch appointed non-executive director at BSkyB
LONDON: Rupert Murdoch has strengthened the Murdoch family presence on the board of BSkyB by appointing his son non executive director.
30 year old James Murdoch is already a board member at News Corp., which owns 36 per cent of BSkyB, UK’s largest pay TV broadcaster. James is also chairman and chief executive of Star TV, News Corp’s Asian pay TV service and his father’s bridgehead into the potentially lucrative Chinese broadcasting market.
Media reports say the induction of James has resulted in the departure of Leslie Hinton, the executive chairman of Mr Murdoch’s News International newspapers, which include the Sun and the Times, from the BSkyB board. It may, reports indicate, infuriate BSkyB investors, a large group of which had voted against re-electing five non executives at last year’s annunal general meeting, in protest against the lack of genuine independent directors.
Martin Pompadur, head of News Corp’s European operations, has also quit the BSkyB board, say reports. Among fresh appointments to the BSkyB board announced today are Chase Carey, a non-executive director at News Corporation, and Lord Wilson of Ditton, former head of the home civil service.
Nine of the 16 board members of BSkyB are now independent non-executive directors.
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.
