iWorld
Viacom18 restructures its leadership team
MUMBAI: Viacom18 today announced changes in its leadership team to focus on scaling and bolstering its digital and broadcast businesses. As part of the rejig, Ferzad Palia will head all SVoD services (Voot Select & Voot Kids) and International expansion for Voot and will report to Viacom18 Digital Ventures COO Gourav Rakshit.
The network’s youth, music and English entertainment business will now be led by Anshul Ailawadi, erstwhile strategy and project management lead at the group CEO’s office. Anshul will be reporting to Network18 MD Rahul Joshi in his new role.
Palia has led the growth of the network’s youth, music and English entertainment business for the past 16 years. More recently he launched Voot Select that has already raced to add 1 million plus subscribers within a year. He will now look to cohesively grow Viacom18’s SVoD and International digital businesses. Ailawadi has played a key role in the growth of Viacom18 over the last six years and is a strong proponent of the tremendous fandom, and the potential business opportunity that the YME brands of Viacom18 command. In a young country like India, these brands have a long runway for growth, especially given the proliferation of digital platforms.
Viacom18 forayed into digital subscription businesses in late 2019 with Voot Kids that was closely followed by Voot Select launched in March 2020. Voot Select recently reported acquiring over 1mn subscribers in its first year and though being a late entrant in the category it’s the fastest growing broadcaster-backed OTT service. Youth, Music and English Entertainment portfolio of Viacom18 consists of category leading channels like MTV, MTV Beats, Vh1, Comedy Central and Colors Infinity.
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.
