News Broadcasting
BBC World readies news, analysis specials
MUMBAI:BBC World, the 24-hour international news and information channel is gearing up for the grand finale of 2002 with an eclectic mix of news, business, analysis, sport and lifestyle programmes.
Most of the global and India-specific programmes on the channel will spearhead the year-end programmes by airing special episodes.
World Review 2002 will give a global perspective on a wide range of issues that affected the world last year with in-depth reports from every continent and an analysis of how things are likely to change. The programme airs at 3:00 pm on weekdays and 8:00 PM on weekends.
The World Business Report has lined up three specials – Holding On The Line which takes a look at 3G phones and how the big promise of new markets and future profits has evaporated, On The Brink which will look ahead at the global economy in 2003, and Accounting For Greed which will take the viewer to what lies behind the scandal and corruption in the corporate world. The programme airs at 6:00 am and 10:45 pm on weekdays.
Question Time India which airs on Fridays at 10:00 pm will feature two specials – the first will look at some of the major events of the year with a panel comprising leading academics and journalists, while the second will look ahead to the issues facing India in 2003 with a panel of leading politicians from the Congress and the ruling party BJP.
India Business Report will feature a special that will take a look at the overall performance of the Indian economy in 2002 with analysis and interviews with players and pundits, focussing on four important segments – stocks and shares, major industries, financial institutions and exports.The show airs Sundays at 11:00 am and Mondays at 10:00 pm .
Wheels, will telecast a unique episode on New Year’s eve featuring a spectacular show of the best cars and bikes launched this year and will announce the Wheels Awards for the year 2002.
Mastermind India will air the culminating episode of the programme recorded at the grand Falaknuma Palace in Hyderabad . The show which forms the backdrop for the battle of intellects will finally reveal the Mastermind India winner for the year 2002. The show airs on Thursdays at 10:00 pm and on Sunday at 10:00 am with a repeat at 10:00 pm.
HARDtalk with Tim Sebastian has an interesting line-up of celebrity guests for its special episode. The guests include David Attenborough, Sinead O’Connor, Youssou N’Dour, Boris Becker and Tom Jones. The channel will also air the best celebrity HARDtalks from 2002 with Marianne Faithful, Pik Botha, John McEnroe and Seve Ballesteros. The programmes airs weekdays at 10:00 am, 5:00 pm and 9:00pm.
Also while Talking Movies will take a look back at some of the highs and lows of the movie world in 2002 and look forward to 2003 with presenter Tom Brook in two specials, Click Online will review the developments that transformed the world of IT in 2002.
Talking Movies airs Thursdays at 11:00pm and Fridays at 1:00pm and 5:00 pm respectively and Click Online on Sundays at 4:00 pm , Mondays at 11:00pm, Tuesdays at 2:00pm and Wednesdays at 5: 00 pm respectively.
Sport Today will bring the best from the last year, including the FIFA World Cup, the Tennis Grand Slams, the ICC Knockout tournament, and Michael Schumacher’s riots of wins in Formula 1 along with and a preview of sport in 2003. The show airs weekdays at 1:15 pm and 6:15 pm respectively.
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.
