News Broadcasting
Mukta sells telecast rights to SET
Bollywood showman Subhash Ghai’s Mukta Arts yesterday ended all speculation regarding the sale of satellite telecast rights of its film library when it announced that Sony Entertainment Television had bought them.
The deal, which includes the entire Mukta film library of 12 films, is for Rs 161 million for a five-year period. The company’s first deal to sell its movie library to B4U channel fell through last year.
“We were talking to several channels for the last one year and finally signed the agreement with SET this (yesterday) afternoon,” the Press Trust of India quoted company executive director Parvez Farooqui as saying.
Farooqui was quoted as saying Mukta Arts was open to enter into a similar arrangement with other television channels for its future movies.
The 12 films include Ghai’s first blockbuster Karz, which was released in 1980, Yaadein, Taal, Pardes, Khalnayak, Saudagar, Karma, Hero, Trimurti, Rahul, Ram Lakhan and the still-to-be released Badhaai Ho Badhaai.
Mukta sold the rights for Badhaai Ho Badhaai alone for Rs 12.5 million.
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.
