iWorld
ALTBalaji crosses 20 million paid subscribers mark
MUMBAI: Balaji Telefilms' digital arm ALTBalaji has gained more than 20 million paid subscribers by the end of the first quarter of 2019. The streaming player’s subscribers are likely to hit 25 million when its next quarterly results are announced.
“We are in mass Hindi-speaking India,” Balaji Telefilms group COO Nachiket Pantvaidya said as quoted by Variety. “We want people in Surat, Ranchi, Raipur to watch us. We want people in rural India to watch us,” he added.
Since its launch in 2017, the Ekta Kapoor-led platform has gained good traction in the over-crowded OTT market on the back of its local content and cheaper pricing. It recently entered a partnership with ZEE5 whose 76 million monthly active users will get access to ALTBalaji’s content. “If you have to address mass India, you have to be as near free as possible,” Pantvaidya said.
According to Counterpoint Research, men account for 79 per cent of all Indian OTT users. The higher inclination of male audience towards OTT platforms is largely because of the lack of content available for them on general entertainment channels. OTT platforms like ALTBalaji are trying to fill that gap.
ALTBalaji has popular shows like Gandii Baat, Kehne Ko Humsafar Hain attracting different audience segments. “We are finding our feet, collecting the data, surviving the initial tough years in a market which is filled with Goliaths who are probably outspending us by 20 to 1”, Pantvaidya said.
iWorld
Meta plans 8,000 layoffs in new AI-led restructuring wave
First phase from May 20 may cut 10 per cent workforce amid AI pivot.
MUMBAI: At Meta, the future may be artificial but the cuts are very real. The social media giant is reportedly preparing a fresh round of layoffs, with an initial wave expected to impact around 8,000 employees as it doubles down on its artificial intelligence ambitions. According to a Reuters report, the first phase of job cuts is slated to begin on May 20, targeting roughly 10 per cent of Meta’s global workforce. With nearly 79,000 employees on its rolls as of December 31, the move marks one of the company’s most significant workforce reductions in recent years.
And this may only be the beginning. Sources indicate that additional layoffs are being planned for the second half of the year, although the scale and timing remain fluid, likely to be shaped by how Meta’s AI capabilities evolve in the coming months. Earlier reports had suggested that total cuts in 2026 could reach 20 per cent or more of its workforce.
The restructuring comes as chief executive Mark Zuckerberg continues to steer the company towards an AI-first operating model, committing hundreds of billions of dollars to the transition. Internally, this shift is already visible: teams within Reality Labs have been reorganised, engineers have been moved into a newly formed Applied AI unit, and a Meta Small Business division has been created to align with broader structural changes.
The trend is hardly isolated. Across the tech sector, companies are trimming headcount while investing aggressively in automation. Amazon, for instance, has reportedly cut around 30,000 corporate roles nearly 10 per cent of its white-collar workforce citing efficiency gains driven by AI. Data from Layoffs.fyi shows over 73,000 tech employees have already lost jobs this year, compared with 153,000 in all of 2024.
For Meta, the move echoes its earlier “year of efficiency” in 2022–23, when about 21,000 roles were eliminated amid slowing growth and market pressures. This time, however, the backdrop is different. The company is financially stronger, generating over $200 billion in revenue and $60 billion in profit last year, with shares up 3.68 per cent year-to-date though still below last summer’s peak.
That contrast underlines the shift underway. These layoffs are less about survival and more about reinvention. As Meta restructures itself around AI from autonomous coding agents to advanced machine learning systems, the question is no longer whether the company will change, but how many roles will be left unchanged when it does.
