Updated: UTV New Media Lays Off 20 People – Interview With Manish Agarwal – CEO – Old Media Businesses In New Media Mess?
Updated:
We spoke to Manish Agarwal – CEO, UTV New Media and this is what he had to say..
On the reason for the lay offs
“Restructuring has been done across UTV New media and we have created vertical and horizontal structures. Vertical being brands horizontal being services. I am not agreeing to the word of layoff. Its a combination of consolidation and annual review. The annual review didn’t happen for the UTV new media division earlier.”
On connection with financial performance
“The restructuring has no connection with the financial performance of UTV new media. It is done to make the division leaner and efficient”
What is impact on business? New offerings in pipeline?
“We expect agility in the business after this move. There are plans in pipeline but it will be too early to commment on them.”
Original Post: This is just in: We have been told by various sources that UTV Newmedia division which runs UTVi.com, Techtree.com and various other online properties (which they acquired with the acquisition of ITNation) has laid off 20+ people yesterday.
Many of those laid off are designer developers and even editors and creative directors and joined UTV New Media as part of the acquisition of ITNation. On approaching UTV Corporate Communications we were told that there was indeed restructuring happening internally in the UTV New media division. Recently Manish Agarwal who was earlier the marketing director at Microsoft India’s Developer and Platform Evangelism (DPE) division has joined UTV New Media as CEO in place of TN Prabhu who called it quits and these lay offs could be a result of him joining the company.
We have approached Mr.Manish Agarwal for a confirmation on the story and are awaiting his responses. More as we get more information.
New Media Business In Old Media Companies Suffering
Old media companies like UTV and Network18 seem to be suffering at the hand of recession and also because of the huge investments in New media businesses. I recommend reading this article which explains the mess TV18 is in. The problem is of non cyclical revenues and cyclical expenses. An insider in the Web18 group informed us that late last year Web18 had started offering urban eye media’s (a design company they acquired) website development services to clients inorder to get some cash flows going in the company. Offlate Surya Mantha has become active as the exit of Rishi Khiani has left a vacuum in the Web18 group and there has been several restructuring movements within Web18 as well.
If you look at other online business of old media houses then NDTV Convergence recently lost their CEO Sanjay Trehan who joined Microsoft again leaving a vacuum behind him. Also the strategies of NDTV Convergence to tie up with existing players to launch microsites hasn’t really taken off if you see traffic numbers and we feel its a weak strategy as no asset is being built.
Question is.. Do Old Media Players need to rethink their approach towards new media? Maybe lots of money and lots of people isn’t the answer.. A look at how the west does it with friendfeed (which was acquired by facebook) kind of engineering small led teams focused on building great products might be a good model to look at..
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