News Broadcasting
Celebrate new year with NDTV
MUMBAI: Finally it’s that time of the year when we look back at the year that was. NDTV, India’s pioneering news channel, will highlight the memorable events of 2006 with a line-up of special programmes and shows in the last week of December.
Watch out for the newsmakers, the movers and shakers, the hits and the flops, the controversies, the events that dominated Indian and Global news on NDTV 24X7, NDTV India and NDTV Profit, starting December 25. “As the world bids adieu to the year gone by and ushers in a new year, we bring alive the most dramatic events witnessed in the year 2006, with our reporters’ unmatched perspective and analysis. On the features side, NDTV 24X7 will continue to bring to its discerning viewers the most relevant and innovative programmes,” said Sonia Singh, Managing Editor, NDTV 24X7.
“The year 2006 has been a great year for us, a year to cherish…We have delivered some great news stories and we are all proud that our chat show ‘Muqabla’ won the Best Chat Show award this year from among a group of English shows. We aspire to give our viewers an equally exciting host of programmes in the year ahead and will stay out of sensationalism of news,” said Dibang, Managing Editor, NDTV India.
“Business made, business lost…indigenous ventures gave the multinationals a run for their money while India crossed a few more milestones in global business. Year 2006 has witnessed these and many more on NDTV Profit. Crafted by the best talent in business journalism, NDTV Profit will bring our financially savvy viewers this year’s developments and smart business tips for the New Year,” said Shivnath Thukral, Executive Editor, NDTV Profit.
NDTV 24X7, India’s leading news channel, will bring its viewers a one-hour special “Highlights of the Year ‘06” programme on New Year’s eve. This show will have a section on the juicy controversies, biggest indigenous joint ventures, strongest pictures, obituaries, Best Indian of the Year and a lot more. This will be followed by a half-hour special programme on sports and five different selections from its highly commended night-out shows.
Viewers can savour the very best of NDTV’s acclaimed programmes like The Big Fight, We the People, Cricket Controversies, Walk the Talk and The Great Indian Tamasha.
NDTV Profit commemorates an exciting year of business and lifestyle through a series of special episodes of some of its hallmark shows. Starting with a one-hour exclusive programme called ‘Top four stories of the Year 2006’, it takes a sneak peek at the world of business for the coming week. This is followed by a special D-Street year-ender on the famous mergers and acquisitions of the year, titled ‘India on the prowl.’
NDTV Profit will also show special episodes of some of its most popular shows like Value for money, Good Food, Gadget Guru, Cell Guru and Money Mantra.
The excitement and festivity does not cease here. NDTV India, the acclaimed Hindi news channel will host a series of programmes crafted especially for the occasion, commencing from December 25, 2006, 10 pm onwards.
There will be thought-provoking programmes on terrorist attacks, legal procedures and verdicts, controversies of the year, a special show on how the movie Lage Raho Munnabhai recreated Gandhi in the Indian mind and a lot more…
There will also be special telecasts on the year 2006’s biggest films, best sequels and remakes. So get comfortable and enjoy NDTV’s 2006 retrospective before welcoming year 2007.
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.
