News Broadcasting
HBO defects from Zee, joins Sony platform
MUMBAI / NEW DELHI: Give this to SET India CEO Kunal Dasgupta – he does not lack for dogged determination. Today Dasgupta pulled another rabbit out of his hat with the announcement that HBO, earlier part of the Turner bouquet of channels along with Cartoon Network and CNN on the Zee platform, had defected to Sony Entertainment’s One Alliance.
Effective 1 January, 2003, SET India will manage the advertising sales for HBO and distribute the service through its SET/Discovery One Alliance joint venture in India and the Maldives.
Turner International India had been the exclusive distributor and ad sales representative for HBO since its entry in India two years ago.
Dasgupta has been on record as far back as 1999 that he wanted to have HBO on his platform but it had seemed that his plans had come a cropper once and for all when Turner joined the Zee platform last year in December.
In effect what has happened is that HBO has exited Turner after its two-year contract, which runs till the end of the year (31 December) came up for review. HBO was able to exit from the Turner-Zee deal since its contract was with Turner and formed no part of the 74:26 JV distribution entity between Subhash Chandra’s company and the AOL Time Warner subsidiary.
When contacted, Anshuman Misra, managing director of Turner India, told indiantelvison.com: “When HBO came to India, Turner International India had the distribution and ad sales right for HBO here. The contract was not renewed on the grounds of commercial terms.”
ZEE-TURNER LOOKING FOR REPLACEMENT
Though Misra refused to give out any further details, according to cable industry sources, Zee Turner is looking at finding a “suitable replacement” for HBO, which has been positioned as a premium movie channel.
The sources aver that Turner is looking at starting a movie channel of its own. It is highly unlikely of course that TCM, which had been yanked off the air in South Asia, including India, will stage a comeback.
The sources also indicated that amongst the other options before Zee Turner are channels like Showtime and Cinemax and the time frame for the replacement would be “as soon as possible,” as Zee MGM, another English movie channel in the Zee Turner bouquet, is not really seen as a replacement for HBO.
DECKS ALMOST CLEARED FOR CNBC INDIA’s JOINING ZEE-TURNER
Meanwhile, Zee is doing some poaching of its own as regards CNBC India. The Zee Turner board is slated to meet on 30 November to ratify the decision of getting on board CNBC India, which is all set to come in from the Sony bouquet once the contract comes up for renewal in March 2003.
Queried as to the reasons for the move from Zee, James P Marturano, MD HBO South Asia, would only say that the commercial terms that Sony was offering were attractive.
Asked who would be heading ad sales and distribution of HBO in the new dispensation, Dasgupta said the announcement would be made tomorrow. Elaborating on the ad sales functions, Dasgupta said with the ICC World Cup coming up in March, there would be three different sales teams managing Hindi channels, English channels and cricket.
SUBSCRIPTION HIKE IMMINENT:
Dasgupta also confirmed that there was a subscription hike in the pipeline but would not offer any clues as to pricing except to say that it would reflect the high value properties that were now with the channel, namely cricket and HBO.
Asked to comment on persistent talk in the industry that the two Viacom channels MTV and Nickelodeon were also joining the network, Dasgupta would only say that talks were still on.
Marturano said that HBO viewers could look forward to a heavy-uty movie package in the coming months, with such blockbuster movies as The Cell , Universal Soldier: The Return , Romeo Must Die , Hollow Man and The Perfect Storm coming on the channel.
The really big ticket offering that will be on air in the new year though is Mission Impossible 2 with Tom Cruise in the lead role. A major marketing and promotional campaign can be expected around that if what was done for The Mummy at the beginning of this year is any indicator.
HBO South Asia, which entered the India market in September 2000, is a joint venture in which Time Warner Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios and Sony Pictures Entertainment all have equal stake.
News Broadcasting
Newsrooms rethink AI, trust and revenue models
Editors and tech leaders debate tools, deepfakes and viability.
MUMBAI: If yesterday’s newsroom ran on caffeine and chaos, tomorrow’s may well run on code but with a human still holding the pen. At the 22nd edition of the Video Broadcast and Broadband Tech Summit hosted by IndianTelevision.com, some of the sharpest minds in Indian media gathered to examine how artificial intelligence, automation and shifting audience behaviour are reshaping journalism. The session, titled The Newsroom of Tomorrow Tools, Trust, and Business Viability In Focus, did not descend into techno-utopian hype. Instead, it wrestled with a more uncomfortable question: how do you stay relevant, credible and profitable when the audience is changing faster than the headline cycle?
The panel featured Govindraj Ethiraj, Editor of The Core, Dr Nilesh Khare, COO of Sakal Media Group; Prakaran Tiwari, Chief Executive Producer at NDTV Profit; Manoj Padmanabhan, Head of Business Media and Entertainment at AWS; Neeraj Mishra, Key Account Manager at Vizrt and session chair; and Mayuresh Konnur, Bilingual Correspondent at Collective Newsroom, publisher for BBC in India.
Govindraj Ethiraj set the tone with a frank assessment. “The reason people do not consume as much news through us is because they are consuming news through other sources they trust more,” he said. In a fragmented ecosystem flooded with content, trust has become the real differentiator.
Yet AI is undeniably transforming workflows. Ethiraj admitted he now uses AI tools to proofread his own articles. “Sometimes it is scary how much it picks, but it helps,” he said. What once required layers of sub-editing can now be assisted by machines trained to flag errors, inconsistencies and structural weaknesses.
He pointed to how newsroom roles have evolved. The desk editor, widely advertised over the last 15 years, barely existed in its current form before the internet boom. As digital publishing accelerated, tasks such as curating listicles, ranking stories and optimising headlines became specialised functions. Now, many of those responsibilities can be performed or at least supported by AI systems. The disruption is not hypothetical; it is operational.
Dr Nilesh Khare approached the issue from both a business and technological standpoint. Sakal Media Group is developing its own large language model, built on 60 years of text and photo archives. The goal is independence. “We won’t need to depend on other platforms to develop ours,” he said, underscoring the strategic value of proprietary data.
For Khare, AI represents opportunity as much as anxiety. It can help expand content across geographies and languages, particularly in bridging North and South Indian markets. It can streamline production and reduce costs. He did not shy away from the implications. “As a journalist I feel bad but as a content producer I feel good that we will require less manpower,” he said, articulating a tension many in the room recognised but few openly admit.
He also highlighted how audience behaviour is evolving. Today, a retail investor can follow a stock using Gemini or GPT instead of toggling between multiple news channels. News is no longer consumed linearly; it is queried, personalised and synthesised. The newsroom must therefore produce content that survives not just on screens but within AI-generated summaries.
Prakaran Tiwari offered a more philosophical reflection. “AI has developed itself and adapted on the basis of how news is consumed. It’s all about giving a perspective,” he said. In his view, the competitive edge will not lie in speed alone but in interpretation. Facts are increasingly commoditised; context is not.
He also suggested that formats are fluid. While short-form video dominates social feeds, long-form audio is resurging. Govindraj Ethiraj noted that in the United States the 2024 election was described as the “podcast election”, reflecting how audiences are investing time in deeper, long-form discussions. The newsroom of tomorrow must cater to both scrolling and sustained listening.
Manoj Padmanabhan of AWS reframed the debate. Technology, he argued, is not an existential threat but an amplifier. “The power is given to the human journalist with all this technology in their hand, with it acting as a support or assistant to deliver the correct and relevant news to the people,” he said.
The traditional divide between a “normal” newsroom and a “digital” newsroom is fading. “It will not be two newsrooms,” he said. “It will be one newsroom.” In that integrated environment, the storyteller remains central. AI may assist with research, editing and distribution, but editorial judgement remains human.
Neeraj Mishra of Vizrt echoed the assistive narrative. India, he said, is a market of organised chaos, where news broadcasters are pushing ever-increasing volumes of content. AI will help manage scale. It is not here to replace people but to assist them.
Production barriers are already collapsing. “You don’t need a green screen to produce content now,” Mishra observed, hinting at virtual production tools and real-time rendering technologies. And this, he said, is only the beginning. In a cost-conscious market like India, AI adoption in both B to B and B to C segments is likely to rise sharply. The skills are available, he argued, the real question is whether organisations are willing to invest.
If opportunity was one half of the conversation, risk was the other. Mayuresh Konnur warned that fake news is now being peddled with alarming ease using AI tools. Deepfakes, synthetic audio and fabricated visuals can damage credibility overnight. Several journalists, he said, have already faced instances where manipulated content was circulated in their name.
“Eventually it becomes a question of how authentic you are in the market,” Konnur noted. In a crowded information economy, credibility is the ultimate moat. Regulations and clear guidelines, he argued, are necessary to curb misuse without stifling innovation.
Mishra added a note of caution against overuse. “AI should not be everywhere. It has to be used optimally,” he said. The value lies not in blanket automation but in strategic integration.
One of the most resonant metaphors came from Padmanabhan. AI, he suggested, is like a brush in a human hand. Powerful, versatile, transformative but inert without the artist. It cannot survive without the human touch.
Konnur distilled the session’s core takeaway, AI is inevitable, but the art of storytelling will never disappear.
In a media landscape defined by speed, shrinking attention spans and intense competition, the newsroom of tomorrow is not simply a technological upgrade. It is a recalibration. Between efficiency and ethics. Between automation and authenticity. Between reducing manpower and retaining meaning.
The algorithms may write cleaner copy and generate sharper graphics. They may even predict what audiences want before audiences know it themselves. But the enduring task remains unchanged to tell stories that inform, interrogate and inspire.
And for that, the human newsroom is still very much open for business.
