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Vdopia appoints Daniel Ahiakpor as VP, business development
MUMBAI: Vdopia has announced the appointment of Daniel Ahiakpor as its vice president, business development, a newly created position in Vdopia’s New York office. Ahiakpor will be responsible for striking and developing key publisher and mobile-app partnerships for the company.
Vdopia co-founder, chief operating officer Chhavi Upadhyay said, “Daniel is an accomplished advertising technology professional with over 12 years of experience in sales, business development, publisher relations, and ad operations with a focus on video. He will be an important addition to our New York operation as we ramp up our mobile video programmatic buying and selling capabilities.”
Ahiakpor began his career with Providian Financial (now owned by JPMorgan Chase) as a project coordinator – marketing operations.
Ahiakpor comes to Vdopia from Adap.tv (New York), an AOL Company, and a video ad exchange and platform, where he led the company’s North American publisher platform business as Sr. director/head of publisher platform sales.
Prior to that, he was a senior member of the publisher business development team at ScanScout, a technology-driven video ad network which was sold to Tremor Video in late 2010.
Additionally, he has also held various roles in operations, ad technologies and sales development over several years for Yahoo and for Fox Interactive Media.
“I joined Vdopia because of its solid global position at the intersection of mobile and video. As we know, both are among the most important and fastest growing categories in digital advertising. Simply put, mobile is the environment in which audiences are most engaged, and video is often the most effective and entertaining way to deliver branded messages to audiences,” explained Ahiakpor.
He added, “With its proprietary, VDO format, Vdopia brings innovation into the equation by helping marketers target and deliver creative branded video messages across mobile and tablet devices, with greater ease and efficiency. Vdopia is also bringing automation to its ad solution to further streamline the process of planning, buying and selling mobile video.”
Vdopia VP-APAC Preetesh Chouhan said, “Daniel is an accomplished advertising professional. He will play a pivotal role in Vdopia’s efforts to bring automation to its ad solution to further streamline the process of optimising mobile video. The recent inclusion of talented industry players like Daniel in our team will further boost the growth wave that Vdopia has been riding on.”
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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.
