News Broadcasting
Prasar Bharati looking at relaunching DD News
Less than six months after Prasar Bharati shut down its Doordarshan News channel due to lack of viewership, the pubcaster is contemplating reviving it.
This was confirmed to indiantelevision.com by a senior Prasar Bharati official today. It needs noting that when DD News closed down on 26 January after 18 months on air, there were simply no takers for the channel despite the increased interest in news post-11 September. The idea then was to devote more time on DD1 to news and current affairs.
What seems to have brought around this turnaround in thinking seems to have been the communal strife that Gujarat state witnessed as well as the ongoing tensions with neighbouring Pakistan. The private news channels have gone from strength to strength following these events with blanket coverage of the events.
The government appears to have come round to the view that a dedicated news channel is an absolute must in these times of uncertainty to work as a vehicle to better represent the government’s side of the story.
Word of a rethink on DD News comes at a time when Doordarshan is working overtime to spruce up its new presentation team with the help of the BBC and there is a spurt of interest among private players to launch news channels.
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.
