iWorld
ZEE5 india’s Tarun Katial to speak at 24th paley international council summit
MUMBAI: ZEE5 India CEO Tarun Katial will become the first Indian CEO from the OTT industry to speak at the 24th Paley International Council Summit. The Paley Center for Media’s 24th Paley International Council Summit: Agility in Media: Navigating the Global Market will be held in New York City on November 14-15, 2019. The Paley International Council Summit, an exclusive, invitation only member ship community often referred to as the “Davos of Media”, brings together global leaders and CEOs of the world’s most important media companies, to advance the exchange of ideas and to foster a sense of community. The Summit was first held in 1995 in Italy, and over the years, has been held in China, South Africa, Germany, Austria, India, Monaco, Spain, France, Turkey, Mexico, and the United Kingdom.
Tarun will be a part of the panel, ‘Vertical Integration’ on Nov 15th along with other eminent industry leaders such as Dexter Goei, CEO, Altice USA and Dana Strong, President, Consumer Services, Comcast Cable. The panel will be moderated by Adam Bird, Senior Partner from McKinsey & Company. Within Vertical Integration, they will be seen discussing which approach will win in this brave new world of content creation and distribution platforms? As companies across all sectors of media, tech and business are addressing this challenge in a variety of surprising ways.
ZEE5 is India’s largest ConTech brand, delighting Indian audiences through the magnitude of content produced in 12 languages and delivering a hyper-personalised experience for Segment of ONE at scale. In 2019 itself, ZEE5 has rolled out around 25 original shows across genres, and the platform is committed to launching 72+ shows by March 2020. It has crossed 70 million+ downloads since launch on the Play Store and had 9 million DAUs as of September 2019.
The Paley Center for Media, with locations in New York and Los Angeles, leads the discussion about the cultural, creative, and social significance of television, radio, and emerging platforms for the professional community and media-interested public. Drawing upon its curators, collection, and relationships with the media community, The Paley Center for Media examines the intersections between media and society.
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.
