Prasar Bharati will kick off a three-day training program on July 15 in New Delhi, equipping Doordarshan and All India Radio employees with practical skills in AI tools and data analysis. The internal course, titled “Advanced Excel, Data Analysis and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools and Applications in Broadcasting,” aims to bring AI into daily newsroom and operational workflows. More than just a tech demo, the training signals a serious intent to modernize India’s public broadcaster through hands-on, tool-focused education.
The course runs through July 17 at the Directorate General of Doordarshan office. Attendees include Group A and Group B officers, commercial-service staff, Delhi station personnel, and representatives from zonal offices. Participants have been asked to bring laptops, tablets, and phones, underscoring the practical, bring-your-own-device nature of the sessions. Assessment and digital certificates will wrap up the program.
What the training covers—a curriculum built for today’s newsroom
The agenda does not revolve around a single platform. Instead, Prasar Bharati is introducing staff to a broad toolkit that blends familiar productivity software with cutting-edge generative AI. According to Exchange4Media, the curriculum spans AI fundamentals, generative AI, prompt engineering, and responsible-use practices, with live demonstrations of a dozen tools.
On the demo list: ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, DeepSeek, NotebookLM, Perplexity, Adobe Firefly, Canva, CapCut, Riverside, and Kimi. For Windows-centric viewers, the spotlight on advanced Excel, Power Query, dashboards, and data cleaning is especially relevant. These sessions pair traditional spreadsheet mastery with AI-assisted analysis, showing how automation can speed up routine tasks like data cleaning, visualization, and reporting.
Potential use cases highlighted in the programme include summarization, translation, research, script drafting, metadata generation, image and video creation, and audience or operational analytics. Rather than imagining a fully automated newsroom, the training frames AI as an acceleration tool—something that helps journalists, producers, and managers handle repetitive work faster, leaving more time for editorial judgment.
Why this matters for Windows users and IT admins
If you work in a large Windows-based enterprise, Prasar Bharati’s approach offers a blueprint. The decision to build the course around advanced Excel and Microsoft Copilot—while also exposing staff to many other tools—reflects a reality many organizations face: you do not need to abandon your existing stack to adopt AI. Instead, you layer intelligence on top of where data already lives.
For Windows power users, the Excel-Power Query module is worth studying. Power Query, built into modern Excel versions, lets you ingest, clean, and transform data from multiple sources without writing complex code. Pair it with Copilot’s natural-language queries, and you have a formidable engine for generating insight from operational or audience data. The training suggests that Prasar Bharati sees this combination as the first rung on the AI ladder—improving internal reporting before moving on to more creative or public-facing applications.
IT administrators, though, will immediately spot the governance headaches. A course that showcases ChatGPT, Claude, and Copilot side by side is great for broad literacy, but it also means employees are being taught to use tools with very different data-handling policies. Sending unapproved scripts, audience data, or internal documents to a public generative AI service risks leaks and compliance breaches. Prasar Bharati has included responsible-AI training in the agenda, which is a start. But the real test will be whether clear policies follow the training—defining which tools are approved for which tasks, what data can be uploaded, and how outputs get reviewed.
How we got here—public broadcasting’s gradual tech shift
Prasar Bharati has been modernizing in phases. Doordarshan and AIR still reach hundreds of millions, but they face fierce competition from digital-first media and streaming platforms. Over the past few years, the broadcaster has expanded its digital presence through apps and social media, but internal workflows often lag behind. Manual scripting, paper-heavy administrative processes, and siloed data remain common.
The Indian government has also been pushing digital upskilling across public sector units. Initiatives like the National Academy of Broadcasting and Multimedia, under which this training is likely organized, have broadened their curriculum beyond traditional broadcast skills. Including AI tools makes sense: many Indian newsrooms are already experimenting with AI for translation, transcription, and social-media management. Prasar Bharati cannot afford to be left behind.
The July course follows a broader trend of media organizations dipping into AI training. International broadcasters like the BBC and Germany’s Deutsche Welle have published internal guidelines for using generative AI. The difference here is the hands-on, tool-specific format—more of a bootcamp than a policy lecture.
What to do now—steps for your own organization
If you manage a team in a similar Windows-based environment, Prasar Bharati’s playbook is easy to adapt. Start with these four steps:
- Audit the tools your staff already uses. Most offices already have Excel and possibly Microsoft 365 Copilot. Identify what other AI tools have been accessed informally. Begin training on what you already own before adding new licenses.
- Design a layered curriculum. Follow the Prasar Bharati model: foundational AI concepts first, then prompt engineering with demos, then tool-specific workflows. Hands-on practice with real data is non-negotiable.
- Define governance before you go live. Write down which tools are approved, what data stays internal, and how AI-generated content gets reviewed. Even a one-page policy shared during training prevents later accidents.
- Start with low-risk workflows. Translation, summarization of public documents, and data cleaning are safe starting points. Leave script drafting or video creation until after a review chain is established.
Individual Windows users can replicate parts of this training on their own. Microsoft’s free Copilot in Edge, the Copilot mobile app, and Excel’s built-in AI features (like Analyze Data) are all accessible without an enterprise license. Google’s NotebookLM is a free tool for research summarization that uses your own documents. Use these tools responsibly by not uploading sensitive information and always verifying outputs.
Outlook—where public broadcasting goes next
The July 15–17 training is only a first step. If it sticks, Prasar Bharati will likely follow up with department-specific pilots—maybe a metadata-tagging project in the archives or an AI-assisted translation effort for regional bulletins. The key will be whether the broadcaster pairs this initial enthusiasm with clear guardrails and dedicated support staff to help embed AI into real workflows.
Larger questions remain. Will Prasar Bharati adopt enterprise-grade AI with data residency guarantees, or will staff continue to rely on consumer tools? How will the broadcaster handle the copyright and ethical puzzles that come with AI-generated visuals or scripts? For now, the training answers one pressing need: bringing hundreds of public broadcast professionals into the AI conversation, with Excel and Copilot as their starting point.