MAM
Aliagroup ropes in Tony Kent as strategic retail advisor
MUMBAI: The Aliagroup has roped in The Marketing School of the London College of Communications director of postgraduate studies Tony Kent as a strategic retail advisor. Kent will be involved with Maximus, a recently launched independent retail branding division of Aliagroup.
In India, Kent is also associated with Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad (MICA), as well as the POP Asia event. He has published a paper on Brand Strategies for a Youth Market in India and also spoke recently on Design for Retailing, Design Management – the under-leveraged power for your balance sheet, at a seminar organised by the British Council in Mumbai.
Kent, a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) and a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (MCIM), has extensive experience in the UK’s retail industry starting with over 15 years in the industry and over 12 years in academics.
“Tony brings with him years of invaluable retail branding experience and global expertise for Maximus clients. With the retail sector witnessing an unprecedented boom in India, the urgent need is to look at the retail sector from branding perspective and not just from interior designing perspective,” said Aliagroup director Sanjeev Malhotra.
Kent said, “I’m delighted to be part Aliagroup, India’s largest brand consulting firm. The need of the hour for the rapidly growing retail industry is to focus on building brands to move up the value chain.”
MAM
Paramount set to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery in $81 billion deal
Shareholders back merger, combined entity could reshape streaming and studios.
MUMBAI: Lights, camera… consolidation, Hollywood’s latest blockbuster might be happening off-screen. Shareholders of Warner Bros. Discovery have voted in favour of selling the company to Paramount in a deal valued at $81 billion rising to nearly $111 billion including debt setting the stage for one of the biggest shake-ups in modern media. The proposed merger, still subject to regulatory approvals, would bring together a vast portfolio spanning HBO Max, CNN, and franchises such as Harry Potter under the same umbrella as Paramount’s own heavyweights, including Top Gun and CBS.
At the heart of the deal is streaming scale. Executives have indicated plans to combine HBO Max and Paramount+ into a single platform, potentially creating a stronger challenger to giants like Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video. Current market data suggests HBO Max holds around 12 per cent of US on-demand subscriptions, compared to Paramount+’s 3 per cent, together still trailing Netflix’s 19 per cent and Disney’s combined 27 per cent via Disney+ and Hulu.
Paramount CEO David Ellison has signalled that while platforms may merge, HBO’s creative identity will remain intact, stating the brand should “stay HBO” even within a broader ecosystem.
Beyond streaming, the deal would redraw the map for film production. Combining two of Hollywood’s oldest studios Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros., the new entity aims to scale output to over 30 films annually, while maintaining a 45-day theatrical window. Warner Bros. currently commands around 21 per cent of the US box office, compared to Paramount’s 6 per cent, underscoring the strategic weight of the acquisition.
But scale comes with scrutiny. Critics warn that fewer players could mean reduced consumer choice, rising subscription costs, and potential job cuts as the combined company looks to streamline overlapping operations while managing billions in debt.
The news business, too, faces a reset. CNN would join forces at least structurally with Paramount-owned CBS, raising questions about editorial independence and positioning. The merger has already drawn political attention in the United States, particularly given perceived ties between the Ellison family and Donald Trump, though the company maintains that newsroom autonomy will be preserved.
If approved, the deal would mark another milestone in Hollywood’s consolidation wave shrinking the industry’s traditional “big six” studios to a “big four”, with Paramount joining Disney, Universal, and Sony at the top table.
In an industry built on storytelling, this merger may well become its most consequential plot twist yet.
