News Broadcasting
Internet & Online Association aims 100 m users by 2007
MUMBAI: Indian portal biggies HT.com, Indiatimes.com, MSN.co.in, Rediff.com, Sify.com and Yahoo.co.in and the online media agency Mediaturf have come together to form a body called the Internet and Online Association (IOA). The IOA which was set in January this year was formally launched in Mumbai today.
IOA has set a target to get a 100 million Internet users in India by 2007.
IOA is a non-profit organisation which has been registered under the Societies Act, 1986 with the key objective of expanding and enhancing content and business realisation through online advertising, e-commerce and mobile advertising.
The executive council members of IOA include, chairman V V Kannan, joint vice chairman Neville Taraporewalla and V Ramani, secretary Upen Rai and treasurer Aninda Shome.
IOA hopes to achieve 100 million Internet users in India by 2007 through a multi-pronged strategy covering: mass communicating the time and cost savings generated by using the Internet, delivering best-in-class research and strategic inputs to the industry, encouraging the adoption of global standards and guidelines that increase customer confidence, marketing and promoting the industry by diseminating research and white papers, organising events and media campaigns, developing educational material through global and national partnerships to raise the level of knowledge among users and partnering with the government and trade bodies to inform and shape policies and legislations that affect the industry.
Speaking on the occasion, IOA chairman and Sify interactive services president V V Kannan said, “The impact of technology is seen only when it benefits a substantial portion of the population. We believe that the target of 100 million users by 2007 is possible and IOA will work towards this objective. At that size India will be one of the top five Internet markets in the world.”
He further added, “The online industry depends on advertising as the major source of revenue. More and more marketers are using the Internet and we see the potential for a one billion rupees online advertising business in the next 12 months. With the increase in penetration, this can grow to a few billion in the next three years.”
Commenting on IOA’s objective of increasing direct value to members, IOA president Preeti Desai said, “IOA aims to empower Indians by setting up standards that encourage transparency and protect privacy. We are also committed to creating a secure, safe and dynamic environment for children and teenagers.”
An upbeat Kannan said, “There should be a time in the future when people will talk about B.I. (Before Internet) and A.I. (After Internet) instead of B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D. (After Death).
Kannan said that the online revenue market has gone up from Rs 450 million last year to Rs one billion. Also on the agenda of IOA was to build consumer trust by setting up a standard that would encourage transparency and protect privacy.
The growth of the Indian online industry is projected at 2.5 per cent from 0.5 per cent of the total spends in the next three years.
IOA is looking at getting all the portals on board. Desai said, “The membership fee for IOA is Rs 400,000. We are looking at having all vertical, horizontal, niche and commerce portals on IOA. The membership fee is steep initially but we are looking at a lot of mobile and ecommerce initiatives, research in the near future and hence we are hoping that with revenue coming in from those channels, the membership fee will subsequently reduce.”
IOA is a platform to build a strong online market and this organisation was born out of the desire to build a collaboration between various portals.
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.
