iWorld
Shemaroo Entertainment starts OTT journey banking on its popular titles
MUMBAI: Content powerhouse Shemaroo Entertainment has taken the OTT dive. The new platform ShemarooMe will have seven distinct categories on offer – Bollywood Classic, Bollywood Plus, Gujarati, Kids, Bhakti, Ibaadat and Punjabi. Rather than focusing on the rat race, Shemaroo perceives the new journey as a “marathon”. The company does not want to overspend or lay a hand on every genre.
The new OTT platform also provides consumers with the freedom to pick and choose the categories of content and pay for them separately. Individual category plans cost Rs 49 per month and Rs 499 per year while the all-access plan costs Rs 99 per month and Rs 999 per year. However, the platform will work on the freemium model.
While Shemaroo Entertainment has produced a number of popular Bollywood movies, the company won’t house every title on the new platform. Talking to Indiantelevision.com, Shemaroo Entertainment CEO Hiren Gada said that the titles which don’t fit with the segmentation or serve consumer needs will not be added to the platform.
Gada said the platform now has access to overall about 2000 films and 1000+ hours of non-film content. Going forward, the content library will be refreshed every week. He also added that the first three months of refresh line up is already in place but the new entrant has no plan to jump on the web-series bandwagon like other OTT platforms.
“We want to be true to these segments. We neither want to confuse the customers nor shift focus on our efforts and resources. I will rather strengthen the categories I am serving than doing something which is unlike me,” Gada added.
A mass media campaign will be rolled out across print, television, radio, outdoor for promoting ShemarooMe. Apart from that, digital dominates the marketing plan heavily.
“Today we have so many users on our digital platforms who are relevant target audience. Someone who is using Filmygane, or any other Shemaroo YouTube channel, is a natural audience for us. So focus will be on how to inform them, invite them and help them transit from there to here. We don’t know how many of them will transit and at what pace that will happen. That’s too new for us,” he commented.
While there are over 35 OTT platforms in the country, differentiating the new product to attract more consumers is definitely a challenge. Gada said that there is a large fan base that will consume content if it is familiar territory. According to him, there are people looking for new content and an equal amount looking for familiar content. He added that the ability to provide consumers with familiar content is one of the most important propositions of ShemarooMe.
Gada said that the whole business model of the OTT platform has been developed in way so that it does not put pressure on Shemaroo Entertainment’s overall expenditure. He also said consumer feedback will play a very important role in course correction leading to addition and removal of certain content.
“Through ShemarooMe, we wish to pamper Indians with great content that can be watched over and over again. Great content needs greater technology. Our content is offered on a state-of-the-art, robust platform, with a roadmap of features to woo our audiences. From live to linear to VOD content, we have all forms of consumption options available. We will be expanding our OTT distribution through strategic partnerships to offer exciting content across multiple platforms catering to the target audience and we do hope this is cherished by our audiences who have supported us for over 55 years,” Shemaroo Entertainment Digital COO Zubin Dubash commented.
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Meta plans 8,000 layoffs in new AI-led restructuring wave
First phase from May 20 may cut 10 per cent workforce amid AI pivot.
MUMBAI: At Meta, the future may be artificial but the cuts are very real. The social media giant is reportedly preparing a fresh round of layoffs, with an initial wave expected to impact around 8,000 employees as it doubles down on its artificial intelligence ambitions. According to a Reuters report, the first phase of job cuts is slated to begin on May 20, targeting roughly 10 per cent of Meta’s global workforce. With nearly 79,000 employees on its rolls as of December 31, the move marks one of the company’s most significant workforce reductions in recent years.
And this may only be the beginning. Sources indicate that additional layoffs are being planned for the second half of the year, although the scale and timing remain fluid, likely to be shaped by how Meta’s AI capabilities evolve in the coming months. Earlier reports had suggested that total cuts in 2026 could reach 20 per cent or more of its workforce.
The restructuring comes as chief executive Mark Zuckerberg continues to steer the company towards an AI-first operating model, committing hundreds of billions of dollars to the transition. Internally, this shift is already visible: teams within Reality Labs have been reorganised, engineers have been moved into a newly formed Applied AI unit, and a Meta Small Business division has been created to align with broader structural changes.
The trend is hardly isolated. Across the tech sector, companies are trimming headcount while investing aggressively in automation. Amazon, for instance, has reportedly cut around 30,000 corporate roles nearly 10 per cent of its white-collar workforce citing efficiency gains driven by AI. Data from Layoffs.fyi shows over 73,000 tech employees have already lost jobs this year, compared with 153,000 in all of 2024.
For Meta, the move echoes its earlier “year of efficiency” in 2022–23, when about 21,000 roles were eliminated amid slowing growth and market pressures. This time, however, the backdrop is different. The company is financially stronger, generating over $200 billion in revenue and $60 billion in profit last year, with shares up 3.68 per cent year-to-date though still below last summer’s peak.
That contrast underlines the shift underway. These layoffs are less about survival and more about reinvention. As Meta restructures itself around AI from autonomous coding agents to advanced machine learning systems, the question is no longer whether the company will change, but how many roles will be left unchanged when it does.
