iWorld
Ad budgets in US shift from television to digital platforms
NEW DELHI: Even as the switch over to digital technology is beginning to show pace in India, digital video ad spend grew by 42 per cent over the past year to total $7.46 billion in 2015 in the United States for the sixth consecutive year.
Within the next four years, that number is expected to nearly double and reach over $13 billion by 2019, according to a report on 2015 US State of the Video Industry by Verizon’s AOLPlatforms.
According to the report, marketers are reprioritising traditional advertising budgets and adding dollars to digital video. TV budget growth is stagnating, with a sizeable portion of those dollars being reallocated to video advertising.
Mobile and video are converging, posing new opportunities and challenges to the industry. Overall mobile video advertising spend increased 18 per cent since 2014, but marketers say measurement remains a key pain point.
Almost 91 per cent of brands and agencies are buying video programmatically and continue to make larger investments into the technology year-over-year. Eighty-eight per cent of publishers claim they sell their video inventory programmatically, a noticeable 37 per cent leap from 2014.
Programmatic TV is gaining popularity as audience fragmentation hits an inflection point. Over the next year, 41 per cent of television buyers–a 3x increase since 2014–plan to rely on programmatic technology to make more strategic TV investments.
Advertisers and agencies devote over 30 per cent of their overall video budgets to branded video content. Brands intend to grow these investments 10 per cent in the next year.
AOL Platforms surveyed nearly 300 US brands, agencies and publishers to get a holistic view of the current state of video advertising.
iWorld
Tips Music CEO Hari Nair to step down
Girish Taurani and Sushant Dalmia to jointly steer the company as the hunt for a new chief begins
MUMBAI: A leadership shuffle is under way at Tips Music. Hari Nair, the company’s chief executive, will step down on April 30 as the music label begins the search for a successor.
The company said Girish Taurani, executive director, and Sushant Dalmia, chief financial officer, will jointly oversee operations during the transition while the board identifies a permanent replacement.
Nair joined Tips Music in 2023 and set about reshaping the veteran music label into a more digital, data-led enterprise. During his tenure, the company secured licensing and partnership deals with global platforms including Sony Music Publishing and TikTok, while renewing agreements with Warner Music Group.
Drawing on earlier experience in technology and entertainment, including a stint at ByteDance, Nair pushed the organisation towards a performance-driven culture. He built a brand partnerships division and introduced proprietary software systems aimed at strengthening digital distribution and data capabilities.
Kumar Taurani, chairman and managing director, credited Nair with embedding a data-led culture within the company and driving revenue growth in line with shareholder commitments.
In his resignation note, Nair said that after helping transition the label into a modern, digitally focused and process-driven organisation, the time had come to pursue his next leadership challenge.
The leadership change comes as the broader Tips Films group shows signs of financial stabilisation. In the third quarter of FY26 the company reported a net loss of Rs 2.86 crore, narrowing sharply from Rs 14.2 crore in the previous quarter. For the nine months ended December, losses stood at Rs 12.37 crore.
Yet revenue told a more volatile story. Income from operations slid to Rs 4 crore in Q3 FY26 from Rs 56 crore in the preceding quarter, taking total operating income to Rs 4.56 crore.
For a company built on a catalogue of more than 34,000 tracks and decades of Bollywood hits, the next chief will inherit both a digital engine and a volatile music market. The playlist may be familiar, but the next act at Tips Music is only just beginning.
