News Broadcasting
Rich media ad product on Lycos Network
US: Terra Lycos, which claims to be the largest global Internet network has announced that CheckM8, a new rich media advertising product, has been deployed on the Lycos Network.
CheckM8 is an end-to-end rich media and integrated marketing solution for the rapid and easy production, management and deployment of innovative media units including floating ads, preview ads, footer and margin ads, watermarks and many more. With the new technology, Lycos can dramatically compress the time it takes to implement creative online advertising, allowing clients to quickly realize the benefits of high impact messaging and to easily adjust the creative to suit their needs.
Lycos claims to have historically embraced rich media ad units as an opportunity to provide value to both advertisers and users. CheckM8 allows the company to implement ad campaigns that combine innovative branding with response-based ad units that can play a key roll in offline/online consumer messaging efforts. An official release informs that Lycos conducted limited tests of the CheckM8 products over the past few months successfully. Lycos claims that clients who have tested CheckM8 have deployed campaigns in a fraction of the time required to launch many other rich media formats and enjoyed click-through rates well above rates seen on standard Internet advertising products.
The release says Lycos Network made a big move toward rich media advertising late last year when it re-launched its network with a new media-friendly architecture. By regulating the number of exposures per user rather than restricting placement of new ad formats, Lycos streamlined the network with a uniform architecture that was almost universally accepting of diverse rich media formats.
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.
