MAM
MTV goes beyond television from 17 October
MUMBAI: It’s “Beyond music! Beyond television!” for MTV as it rebrands from 17 October. Shedding the “Music Television” tagline that has been labelling its logo since 1981, the channel completes the repositioning exercise it started two years back. Fitting into this format, the channel will launch four new shows – one each for the television, mobile, web and voice portal. The repositioning is in line with what has happened in the US where the broadcaster has been making conscious efforts to gradually move away from just music. “This does not mean that we are running away from music. We were born of music, inspired by music, driven by music. However, we are not limited by music. Dropping the words ‘Music Television’ from under our logo is a big symbolic statement and finally closes the loop on the repositioning exercise MTV kicked off two years back. The letter M stands for many things including movies, masti, music and magic,” avers Patil. On the mobile play MTV will introduce MTV Rant (Raving About Nothing Today), which offers opinions on raging issues. Mixing action and animation, the show will “look to go beyond music, television and also beyond issues to ramble about nothing and everything”.
MTV will don a new black and white logo, cut down its music content to 25 per cent, tailor content for online and mobile platforms and dress up the channel with more reality shows.
Says MTV India GM Ashish Patil, “MTV has always been at the cusp of change and we feel that this is the right time for the next step of our evolution.
Indiantelevision.com had first reported that MTV would shrink its core music content to 25 per cent by the year end as part of its repositioning strategy.
The new on-air graphics environment is made for the youth with elements and expressions unique to their world. This will include scrolls, buffering of videos like what is experienced on Youtube, RSS feeds, pop ups, scraps and comments.
For television, MTV will kick off Nuon MTV Making The Cut from 17 October at 6 pm. The eight-episode reality series on fashion will air on Saturdays. The judges include Lara Dutta, Neha Dhupia, Neil Nitin Mukesh and Madhur Bhandarkar.
For the online platform, the broadcaster will air MTV What the Hack, for which it has roped in Ankit Fadia, an ethical hacker.
On its voice portal 5056882, MTV VJs will start giving acting classes on different emotions. The show is titled MTV Acting Classes.
Says Patil, “Our aim is to be platform agnostic. We already have 600,000 fans on the digital space including 350,000 on Orkut.”
To build up the hype and awareness level of its re-branding, MTV has tied up with upcoming film All The Best which releases this Friday. The channel is also running a contest wherein ads featuring the stars will air on the channel.
Brands
Estée Lauder to shed 10,000 jobs as new boss bets on digital shift
The cosmetics giant raises its profit outlook but stays silent on a possible merger with Spain’s Puig, as job cuts deepen and a three-year sales slump weighs on the turnaround
NEW YORK: Stéphane de La Faverie is not done cutting. Estée Lauder announced on Friday that it plans to eliminate as many as 3,000 additional jobs, taking its total redundancy programme to as many as 10,000 roles, up from a previous target of 7,000 announced a year ago. The company, which owns La Mer, The Ordinary, Tom Ford, and Aveda, employs roughly 57,000 people worldwide. The mathematics of what is now being contemplated is stark.
The fresh round of cuts is expected to generate a further $200 million in savings, bringing the total annual savings from the programme to as much as $1.2 billion before taxes. That money, De La Faverie has made clear, will be ploughed back into the turnaround.
A CEO in a hurry
De La Faverie, who took the helm in January 2025, inherited a company that had endured three consecutive years of annual sales declines. His response has been to move fast and cut deep. A significant portion of the latest redundancies reflects his push to reduce headcount at US department stores, long a cornerstone of Estée Lauder’s distribution model but now a channel in structural decline. In their place, he is accelerating the shift toward faster-growing online platforms, including Amazon.com and TikTok Shop, a pivot that is reshaping not just where Estée Lauder sells but how it thinks about its customers.
The numbers are moving in the right direction
Despite the pain, there are signs the medicine is working. Estée Lauder raised its profit outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year, guiding for adjusted earnings per share in the range of $2.35 to $2.45, above analyst estimates and a notable step up from the $2.05 to $2.25 range it had guided for in February. Organic net sales growth is expected to come in at 3 per cent, the company said, at the high end of the range it set out in February.
The share price tells a mixed story. After De La Faverie took charge, the stock surged nearly 60 per cent, buoyed by investor optimism that a longtime company insider could finally arrest the decline. But 2026 has been rougher: the shares have fallen 27 per cent this year, weighed down by disappointing February results and the overhang of unresolved merger talks with Spanish beauty giant Puig Brands SA. The company gave no additional details about those discussions on Friday, leaving the market to guess.
Silence on Puig
The proposed tie-up with Puig remains the most consequential unknown hanging over Estée Lauder. A deal with the Barcelona-based group, which owns brands including Carolina Herrera and Rabanne, would reshape the global luxury beauty landscape. But with nothing new to say and a turnaround still very much in progress, De La Faverie is asking investors to trust the process.
Three years of sales declines, 10,000 job cuts, and a merger that may or may not happen. At Estée Lauder, the overhaul has barely started.
