News Broadcasting
BIS yet to provide tech specs for DTH
NEW DELHI: It’s a classic case of so near, yet so far.
The debate over open architecture set top boxes continues even as broadcasters twiddle their thumbs. KU-band direct-to-home (DTH) television service in India is likely take some more time before taking off. The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), which has been mandated to come up with technical specifications for the set-top-boxes (STBs) for DTH, may complete its work only by the end of February 2003.
A senior official of India’s information and broadcasting ministry told indiantelevision.com today that BIS generally takes about 60 days for such issues under a procedure and the final process is yet to start.
“The BIS was asked by the government earlier this year to look into the various technical aspects of STBs for DTH, including the fact whether an open architecture is possible or not. We think that BIS will take 60 days to finalise the issue and the specifications may be conveyed to the government only towards the end of February,” the official pointed out.
Though government officials in the ministry are of the opinion that open architecture STBs is a possibility, some people in the BIS feel to the contrary. A senior BIS official told indiantelevision.com reluctantly, quite content to be vague, that the issue of open architecture is a contentious one and needs to be looked into thoroughly.
Certain circles feel that the BIS probably wants to say that for DTH there cannot be an open architecture, but still is unable to articulate it properly.
From the time the DTH guidelines were announced by the government in November 2000, policymakers and broadcasters, interested in starting a DTH service in India, have been at loggerheads over the open architecture issue. Government’s stand has been that such a thing is possible; whereas broadcasters’ have held the view that nowhere in the world does open architecture prevail for DTH.
When confronted with this information, the ministry official, however, admitted that “BIS has also not indicated to us that open architecture is not possible.”
The official further pointed out: “BIS may have some reservation on the issue, but during our talks it has indicated in a limited way that it may be made possible through technology.”
As BIS finally gets down to grapple with the situation, a small hitch has cropped up in the meanwhile which, the ministry official said, may have also contributed to the delay. Until now BIS, which is again part of the Indian government, had been playing the advisory role in various technical aspects relating to broadcasting free of cost. But now the board of the BIS feels that such services should be paid for. “So, we have asked the BIS that it should go ahead with finalising the specifications regarding DTH boxes and the issue of payment for the advisory service can be settled also as part of an intra-governmental affair,” the official explained.
In two years’ time since the DTH guidelines had been announced, only two companies have applied for a DTH licence. This includes Star’s affiliate Space TV and Subhash Chandra’s ASC Enterprises Ltd.
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.
