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JioStar ropes in Hyundai as CTV sponsor for T20 World Cup 2026
MUMBAI: Cricket, cars and connected screens are converging. JioStar has signed up Hyundai Motor India Limited as the connected TV co-powered sponsor for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026 on JioHotstar, tightening the link between premium sport and premium screens.
Announced in Mumbai on 3 February 2026, the deal positions Hyundai at the centre of JioStar’s large-screen digital play, where live sport is fast migrating from cable boxes to internet-enabled televisions. JioStar, the official broadcaster for the tournament, is pitching itself as a results-driven platform that blends scale, data and immersive viewing.
The tie-up also extends Hyundai Motor Company’s global partnership with the International Cricket Council, under which it is a premier partner across men’s and women’s tournaments in six major ICC events between 2026 and 2027. The India arm’s pact with JioStar aims to carry that presence from stadiums into living rooms, stitching together on-ground spectacle and at-home streaming.
At the heart of the pitch is connected TV, now one of the fastest-growing routes to sports audiences in India. The format offers the visual heft of television with the targeting and measurement of digital, promising advertisers not just eyeballs but outcomes—recall, engagement and performance. For brands chasing high-attention households, live cricket remains the ultimate lure.
Anup Govindan, head – sports sales at JioStar, framed the shift as structural.
“Premium sports properties like the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup are powerful growth catalysts, and connected TV is increasingly the screen where these moments are experienced most meaningfully. This partnership with Hyundai Motor India Limited reflects a clear shift toward platform-led, long-term collaborations that prioritise effectiveness and outcomes. JioStar’s connected TV ecosystem delivers unmatched scale across premium households, incremental digital reach, and a high-attention environment that allows brands to drive real business metrics across brand and performance objectives.”
Tarun Garg, managing director and chief executive of Hyundai Motor India Limited, underlined cricket’s commercial muscle.
“Cricket is woven into the cultural fabric of India, with marquee ICC events generating billions of minutes of cumulative viewership, making it one of the most powerful platforms for brand engagement in the country. Our partnership with JioStar for connected TV advertising during the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026 enables us to connect with audiences where premium, live sports consumption is rapidly moving. With over 60 million Indian households accessing content via connected TV, this medium offers the immersive impact of television combined with the precision of digital. This collaboration builds on Hyundai Motor Company’s global association with the International Cricket Council and represents a natural partnership, bringing together HMIL’s scale, innovation and deep consumer connect with JioStar’s unmatched digital reach and leadership in premium sports streaming to deliver high-impact, future-ready brand storytelling.”
JioStar says its CTV stack helps brands find incremental reach among digital-first viewers and cord-cutters, while managing frequency across linear and digital without waste. The promise is a unified strategy: one campaign, many screens, measurable returns.
As cricket’s shortest format chases the longest tail of digital growth, sponsors are following the signal. The remote control is now an ad-tech tool, the living room a data point. In India’s streaming era, the boundary rope runs straight through the big screen.
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Snapchat parent Snap cuts 16 per cent of workforce in AI-driven restructuring
The Snapchat parent is axing around 1,000 jobs and closing 300 open roles to save $500m, as artificial intelligence makes smaller teams the new normal
CALIFORNIA: Snap is snapping. The Snapchat parent has confirmed plans to cut around 1,000 employees, roughly 16 per cent of its full-time workforce, as it bets that artificial intelligence can do what headcount once required. Shares jumped more than 10 per cent in premarket trading on the news, a brisk vote of confidence from a market that has watched the stock shed about 31 per cent this year.
The restructuring, which also closes more than 300 open roles, follows pressure from activist investor Irenic Capital Management, which holds an economic interest of about 2.5 per cent in the company and has been loudly pushing Snap to tighten its portfolio and lift performance. The firm got what it asked for, and then some.
Chief executive Evan Spiegel told employees the cuts would reduce annualised expenses by more than $500m by the second half of the year. The company expects to incur charges of between $95m and $130m related to the layoffs, mostly severance, with the bulk landing in the second quarter. Staff in Snap’s North America team were asked to work from home on the day of the announcement.
The financial backdrop is not without bright spots. Snap expects first-quarter revenue to rise around 12 per cent to approximately $1.53 billion, broadly in line with analyst estimates. Adjusted core profit for the January to March quarter is forecast at about $233m, comfortably ahead of Wall Street’s expectation of $186.8m.
The harder question surrounds Specs, Snap’s augmented reality smart glasses subsidiary, which Irenic has urged the company to spin off or shut down entirely. The unit has absorbed more than $3.5 billion in investment and burns through approximately $500m in cash annually. Snap is pressing ahead regardless, with a consumer product expected later this year, even as Meta leads the market in the segment.
Spiegel is betting that leaner teams, smarter machines and a consumer AR play can restore Snap’s credibility with investors who have run out of patience. The redundancy notices have gone out. The harder restructuring, the one that requires a hit product rather than a headcount reduction, is still very much pending.
