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Sagar Panda Joins Lokal App as Regional Head – Digital Business for West & North India
MUMBAI: Sagar Panda has joined Lokal App as Regional Head – Digital Business – West & North India Market. With nearly two decades of experience in the media and advertising industry, Sagar brings a wealth of knowledge in integrated digital media sales, Branded content advertising, and business development.
He joins the Publisher Platform from Sakal Media Group after working as Regional Business (West & South) for more than a year. Sagar Panda posted about this development on his LinkedIn profile.
Previously, Sagar served as Associate Director – Growth & Partnership at Zee5. Over the course of his career, he has held leadership and sales roles across several well-known organizations including Zee Entertainment, Sakal Media Group, The Hindu Group of Publication, India Television, Network18 Media, and Dalal Street Investment Journal.
Sagar Panda comes with more than 15+ years of experience contributing to organisations namely Zee Entertainment (Zee5), Sakal Media, The Hindu Group, India Television, News18 and Dalal Street Investment Journal.
Sagar’s areas of expertise span Advertising, Online Ad Sales (Display & Programmatic), Brand Solution Sales, Native Content Sales, Sponsorship-driven IPs, Concept Selling, Direct Sales, and Revenue Forecasting. His comprehensive experience also includes team building and management and consistently achieving revenue targets across traditional and digital platforms.
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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.
