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Amazon Prime Video to add TV channels in India
MUMBAI: Taking an edge over its rival Netflix, Amazon Prime Video is looking at making a bold move. The OTT player wants to be a content housing platform that is soon likely to include even TV channels of India.
The section is called Amazon Prime Channels and is already live in other countries such as the US, UK and Japan. According to a report by The Hindu Business Line, Amazon Prime Video head of international originals James Farrel said that Amazon Prime Channels is soon heading to India.
Subscribers here can use their Prime accounts to watch channels like HBO, CBS, Starz, etc., without paying the cable bill. However, users will have to pay for every channel they choose and this will be in addition to the annual prime membership of Rs 999.
Amazon will still have a tough fight with other streaming platforms in the country that offer channels to watch. Leading OTT player Hotstar provides access to content from all 33 channels of its parent company Star India. Reliance Jio’s TV app also has over 500 channels to choose from.
Recently, Amazon announced a number of upcoming Originals that are going under production across the world. Some of them include Indian names such as Bandish Bandits, The Last Hour, an untitled drama thriller, an untitled drama, an untitled reality series and Comicstaan (Tamil). Amazon Prime Video India content director and head Vijay Subramaniam, in a recent interview, said that three new languages are to be added in the first six months of this year. The dropping of data rates across telecom operators has been a boon for OTT players and enabled them to go into regional content targeting rural and interior India.
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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.
