News Broadcasting
Study debunks media monopoly fears in the US
MUMBAI: It is a myth that US media ownership is over concentrated today. Another myth prevalent is that programming choices available to American consumers are shrinking or somehow have been impaired
These findings are contained in a report published by American organisation The New Millennium Research Council (NMRC). The report is titled The Media Monopoly Myth: How New Competition is Expanding Our Sources of Information and Entertainment. The NMRC is composed of a network of policy experts who develop workable, real-world solutions to the issues and challenges confronting policymakers. Its work has focused primarily in the fields of telecommunications and technology.
The report notes that it is regularly contended that “five large corporations” control 80 per cent of the prime time television audience and thus control how and what information people have access to. However the fact of the matter is that the rise of new communications technology, coupled with new producers of information, has continually fragmented the overall mass audience once captured by the old mass media.
In the midst of ongoing court, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and public debate about media consolidation, the study finds that fears about media control and program choices are not based on fact and also reflect increasingly outdated notions of how consumers use media at a point in time when millions are shifting their attention to the Internet and other digital technologies.
The report notes that the three traditional broadcast networks — ABC, CBS and NBC — have seen their prime time ratings slide by about two thirds from the 1970s to date. In the 1970s, on a typical weekday evening, the three networks were watched by about 56 per cent of all households with televisions. By 2003, on a typical evening those networks had on aggregate a 20 per cent rating. They also face competition from newer networks, including Time Warner’s WB and News Corp’s Fox. Those five networks together aggregated to a 26 per cent rating.
Adding together the rating of these five broadcast networks with the cable networks owned by the same corporate family like CNN, HBO and the five major providers of television programming accounted for an average 51 per cent rating in December 2003. This is less than the share that the three networks enjoyed in the 1970s.
In the largest US markets, there typically are 15 or more separate owners of radio stations — and in most of even the smallest markets in the US have more radio competition than in local TV and newspapers combined. A review of 17 studies finds that chainowned newspapers have greater latitude in determining editorial policy than do editors at familycontrolled newspapers.
The report notes that current measures for media ownership do not take into account the massive shift over the last 10 years in which two-thirds of Americans use the Internet for information gathering purposes, including viewing television and reading newspaper content.
The report notes that television viewers have more choices from more sources than at any time in the history of the medium. There is no support for the contention that media ownership by chains or conglomerates leads to any consistent pattern of lowered standards, content, or performance when compared with media owned by families or small companies.
The report argues that American policy makers have been concentrating on the wrong issues — the financial size of media companies or the number of eyeballs tuned in to local programming — rather than whether consumers have a wider range of programming options from which to choose, as is the case today. What is being observed in the US is that the media environment is changing so rapidly that traditional notions of ‘media ownership’ and ‘concentration’ have become irrelevant.
Overly restrictive federal ownership guidelines seeking to remedy these misplaced concerns about media ownership and content are now dysfunctional fixes for a phantom problem. The report bas noted that new delivery mechanism provide for greater choice. An example of that is the delivery of video and film via the Internet. This system is on the verge of becoming more mainstream.
As some of the local telephone carriers upgrade their systems with fiber optic cable to the curb or the home, the transmission speed of downloads will be competitive with cable and satellite services. Devices are on the market that allow even today’s broadband users to download movies and video programming for storage on personal video recorders for viewing at their convenience.
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.
