iWorld
Prime Video’s teen drama smashes viewership records
MUMBAI: Prime Video’s sun-soaked coming-of-age saga, The Summer I Turned Pretty, has returned in blazing form. Season 3 premiered on 16 July, drawing 25 million unique viewers worldwide in its opening week, a 40 per cent leap from Season 2 and a threefold surge since the show’s debut.
Backed by Jenny Han’s book-to-screen vision and fuelled by Taylor Swift’s soundtrack magic, the series has cemented its place as a Gen Z obsession. It now ranks as Prime Video’s most-watched TV season among women aged 18–34 and its fifth most-viewed returning season overall.
Sharing her elation on the smashing success of the series, creator, showrunner, and executive producer Jenny Han said, “Seeing how ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ has resonated with millions—how the story has sparked so many fan conversations, sent the books back on the bestseller lists, and inspired so many viewers’ reactions across social media—it’s everything I could have hoped for and more. As creator and co-showrunner, I’m incredibly proud of what we made. I’m grateful we got to make all three seasons, one for each book, and grateful that audiences have been so passionately embracing the story I wanted to tell.”
Amazon MGM Studios head of TV content, Vernon Sanders explained how the decision to release Season 3 episodes weekly, despite heightened anticipation from fans, was a deliberate move. He said, “This has been a strategy that we’ve rolled out with our second seasons and beyond — whether that’s with ‘The Boys’ or ‘Reacher,’ even ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ Season 2 was weekly. And we see that the audience, even though they’re craving every episode, we’re able to engage them in a longer conversation. And it’s great for the service, because we have people coming back week after week. But that discussion, the community that gets built by having that shared experience and being in one conversation, we see lots of benefits to it. So when and where it makes sense, we’ll keep doing that.” Additionally, the 12 a.m. PT/3 a.m. ET release time aims to streamline messaging and accommodate global viewers.
Adding to the frenzy, the showrunners recently urged fans to keep their passion playful rather than personal, reminding viewers not to blur lines between the fictional heartbreak on screen and the cast bringing it to life.
With new episodes dropping every Wednesday until 17 September, this final season finds Belly (Lola Tung) torn between Jeremiah and Conrad, as love triangles, nostalgia and messy feelings collide one last time.
Prime Video is streaming all three seasons in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada, proof that summer heartbreak now has a truly global language.
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.
