News Broadcasting
Radio Mirchi launches Kaan awards
MUMBAI: Taking an inspiration from the Cannes awards, Radio Mirchi will be launching the Kaan awards. While the Times Group’s radio station has already started inviting entries, the awards will be held in mid-February, probably in Mumbai.
Says Radio Mirchi national marketing head Gautam Gulati, “During the Radio lecture series called Radio Works that we have recently started conducting, we realised that category building is an important aspect of Radio advertising. With a visible lack of any awards instituted to laud excellence in radio advertising, we decide to institute these awards.”
Currently, with Abby’s having a small radio section and the Rapa awards not being publiced too well, there was an obvious need to recognise the talent in radio advertising. “Although not in the interiors, private FM radio has a great reach in the four metros. While people are slowly awakening to the pester power of radio, it is still by and large, a medium used by the advertisers, in addition to the traditional press and television. Besides lauding the talent, the awards will also help educate the media planner about radio,” Gulati explains.
In its debut year the awards will be divided broadly into three clusters, the radical path breaking ads, the creative ads and the radio ads that filliped the ad sales/revenue. While the Radio Mirchi officials are still in the process of drafting the categories, there is a likelyhood of almost 12 categories being announced in each cluster.
With entries invited from all the private radio stations and national broadcaster Prasar Bharati, the awards aim to educate the ad fraternity and the masses, alike, on the creativity and reach of the awards.
While MaCann’s Prasoon Joshi is on the panel to judge the awards, the names thrown for the other six panelists include Vineet Singh Hookmani and Lowe’s Balki. The jury will be a mix of ad men and media planners.
The radio station has invited entries for the calendar year 2003 January to December. “Earlier ads that were aired on the radio were either an audio of the TV ad or a slap shoddy gimmick, but the ads today are far more superior and definitely more creative,” says Gulati. According to Gulati, the target audience is slowly growing from passive listeners to an active audience. With both the housewives and the corporate bigwigs tuning in, the 160 million urban markets are waiting to be trapped.
“In the western market, the radio ad spend forms a chunk of the revenue. We aren’t quite in their league, but I think there is an enough potential,” he added. The FM being still in its nascent stage, the awards will definitely create an awakening of sorts claims Gulati.
Based on the western Pencil awards, One Show awards, Kaan awards aim to become radio equivalent of Cannes.
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.
