News Broadcasting
Viacom, CBS deliver mixed results
MUMBAI: Viacom and CBS Corporation have announced their first financial results since the split of US media conglomerate Viacom.
This earnings report deliver mixed results, because it’s the first one after the separation; there are historical earnings, pro forma earnings, discontinued operations and a special dividend paid to CBS.
For the fourth quarter of 2005, Viacom’s net earnings decreased to $130 million from $406 million, on revenues of $2.72 billion, up nine per cent from the previous year. Cable network revenues were up 16 per cent, but entertainment revenues fell five per cent.
Viacom’s full-year revenues rose 18 per cent to $9.61 billion, with 18 per cent growth in the cable networks segment and 19 percent growth in the entertainment segment. Advertisement revenues rose 18 per cent to $3.96 billion.
While media reports quoted Viacom chief executive Tom Freston saying the company still has “a good feeling” about the first quarter at its cable networks. He cautioned, however, that many advertisers are making their buys of ad time at the last minute, making it difficult to be firm about projections, and that it is coming up against difficult comparisons with last year’s first quarter, when ad sales soared 26%.
Net earnings from continuing operations decreased to $1.3 billion from $1.39 billion. For the year it lost $94 million from entertainment due to movie releases not performing as well as expected and charges for severance expense of $23 million and theatrical inventory write-downs of $32 million.
Viacom executive chairman Sumner M. Redstone said, “The strong growth and performance of the exceptional businesses that comprise new Viacom in 2005 not only validates the rationale for the separation of the company, but also highlights the outstanding potential of this great new company.”
“New Viacom began its life as the world’s leading pure-play content business and under the leadership of Tom Freston and his experienced team, is already moving ahead rapidly to fulfill its core commitment to create great content for every imaginable platform while delivering outstanding returns for shareholders.”
CBS reported a loss of $9.1 billion in the fourth quarter on charges to write down the value of its radio and television businesses. Full-year revenues stayed flat at $14.54 billion. Revenues reflected a two per cent rise in ad revenues led by growth in the television, tadio and outdoor segments offset by a decline in television license fees.
CBS president and CEO Leslie Moonves said, “I am very pleased that the separation is completed. Since the split, we announced a 14 percent increase in our dividend to demonstrate our confidence in our ability to generate strong free cash flow, a measure which showed double-digit growth for us during 2005.”
CBS has been active in recent months, sealing a $325 million deal last November for a two-year-old college sports network called CSTV Networks Inc., even before its split with Viacom was formalized.
Last month it also raised its quarterly dividend from 14 cents to 16 cents, a jump of 14 percent. As it split from Viacom, CBS has said it intends to return capital to investors with dividends and other means, as its businesses generate significant amounts of cash. CBS also said it intended to sell its Paramount Parks business.
However, Moonves indicated on a conference call with investors that it was unlikely that the company would make a run at the latest media company to go on the block, Spanish-language broadcaster Univision Communications. Given CBS’s already large footprint in radio and TV, Moonves said the regulatory hurdles to such a potential deal would be “extreme.”
CBS is also working to shore up its radio business, which suffered another loss at the beginning of this year when the ultra-popular shock jock Howard Stern jumped to Sirius Satellite Radio. Moonves acknowledged that its radio unit has had several “challenges” including the loss of Stern, but he said the business was turning around, quoting media reports.
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.
