English Entertainment
Star to live simulcast 66th Primetime Emmy Awards across 5 channels
MUMBAI: For the first time ever, television’s most celebrated and premiere awards night will be simulcast live in India across the Star bouquet of channels. Touted as TV’s biggest night, the glamorous gala held annually witnesses the best names from the television fraternity walking the red carpet pre-show. From first time nominees to returning favorites each year, the best on prime television are rewarded. Viewers wait in anticipation, rooting for their favorite shows and actors to win the iconic Emmy award.
Nominations for the 66th Emmy® Awards were announced last night by the Television Academy in California. For the first time, they implemented online voting for the nominations phase of the Emmy Awards. The Academy’s membership embraced this change with a meaningful increase in voter participation, nominating programs and performers from broadcast, cable, premium cable and digital outlets. These nominations underscore the membership’s dedication to recognizing quality content regardless of platform.
While Game of Thrones was the most nominated program with with 19 nominations, celebrated miniseries Fargo received 18 nominations and American Horror Story: Coven that aired on Star World Premiere HD received 17 nominations. Other programs receiving ten or more nominations include Breaking Bad (Currently airing on FX), The Normal Heart, Saturday Night Live, House of Cards, Downton Abbey (Due to air on FX), Orange Is The New Black, True Detective and Modern Family (aired on Star World), among others.
Additionally, the many Drama and Comedy series receiving multiple performer nominations include The Big Bang Theory (Star World), Homeland (Star World), House of Cards, Mad Men (Star World Premiere HD), The Newsroom, Portlandia, Saturday Night Live, Shameless and Veep, among others.
This year’s performer nominations include a renowned group of actors many of whom are past Oscar nominees and winners. This includes Chiwetel Ejiofor in Dancing On The Edge, Matthew McConaughey in True Detective and Julia Roberts in The Normal Heart, all of whom were nominated for an Oscar this past year.
Kevin Vaz, General Manager, Star India Pvt Ltd- English cluster says, “This is our first year as official broadcast partner for the Primetime Emmy Awards in India. Our vision is to make Emmy’s a household name in India like The Oscars and it’s for this very reason that we will simulcast the original airing and its repeat across our English GE Channels. Some of our biggest shows like Homeland, Breaking Bad and Mad Men have been nominated and we are glad that this year we will celebrate International TV’s biggest night on India’s biggest English Entertainment Network.”
Hosting the “66th Primetime Emmy® Awards”, will be Primetime Emmy winner Seth Meyers, a dynamic and multifaceted television personality all set to charm audiences with his inimitable wit. He shot to fame for his no-hold-barred style of commentary as a television anchor in the widely popular series Saturday Night Live, and is now the host of the talk show, Late Night with Seth Meyers. The event will be held at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles at will be telecasted at 5:30 am IST with a primetime repeat telecast at 7 pm IST on the 26th August 2014. After telecasting the celebrated Academy Awards, known as The Oscars on Star Movies, the Emmys is yet another premier broadcast acquisition to Star’s prolific portfolio.
Watch the three-hour Emmys Live on 26th of August at 5:30 am and at 7: 00 pm (repeat) on Star World, Star World HD, Star World Premiere HD, Fox Crime and FX.
English Entertainment
Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders approve Paramount deal
Investors wave through a $111 billion megamerger but deliver a stinging, if toothless, rebuke over half-a-billion-dollar goodbye packages
NEW YORK: The shareholders said yes to the deal. They said no to the cheque. At a virtual special meeting on Thursday that lasted barely ten minutes, Warner Bros. Discovery investors voted overwhelmingly to approve Paramount Skydance’s $111 billion acquisition of the company — and then turned around and voted against the lavish exit pay packages lined up for chief executive David Zaslav and his fellow outgoing executives.
Not that it will make much difference. The compensation vote is purely advisory and non-binding. The Warner Bros. Discovery board can, and almost certainly will, pay out as planned.
But the symbolism stings. It is the second consecutive year that WBD shareholders have voted against the executive compensation packages, and this time they had good reason. Zaslav’s exit deal is, by any measure, extraordinary. Under the terms filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, he is set to receive $34.2 million in cash severance, $517.2 million in equity in the combined company, and $44,195 in continued health coverage — a total of at least $550 million. On top of that, Warner Bros. Discovery has agreed to reimburse Zaslav up to $335 million for taxes assessed by the Internal Revenue Service on his accelerated stock vesting, though the company says that figure will decline depending on when the deal closes. As of March 11, Zaslav also held $115.85 million in vested WBD stock awards — and last month sold a further $114 million worth of WBD shares.
Shareholder advisory firm ISS recommended voting against the compensation measure, citing “problematic” tax reimbursements to Zaslav and the full vesting of his stock awards.
Zaslav will be bound by a two-year non-competition covenant and a two-year non-solicitation of customers and employees after the deal closes.
His lieutenants are not walking away empty-handed either. J.B. Perrette, chief executive and president of global streaming and games, is in line for $142 million, comprising $18.2 million in cash severance and $123.9 million in equity. Bruce Campbell, chief revenue and strategy officer, will receive an estimated $121.5 million, including $18.8 million in severance and $102.7 million in equity. Chief financial officer Gunnar Wiedenfels is set for $120 million, made up of $6.6 million in cash severance and $113.1 million in equity. Gerhard Zeiler, president of international, will get $82.6 million, including $11.9 million in severance and $70.7 million in equity.
The deal itself, clinched in February after Netflix declined to raise its bid for Warner Bros., still needs regulatory clearance from the Justice Department and European authorities. Several state attorneys general are also weighing legal action to block it.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, was unsparing. “The Paramount-Warner Bros. merger isn’t a done deal,” she said after the shareholder vote. “State attorneys general across the country are stepping up to stop this antitrust disaster. We need to keep up this fight.”
If it does go through, the combined entity would be a formidable beast, bringing together Paramount Skydance’s stable — CBS, CBS News, Paramount Pictures, Paramount+, BET, MTV and Nickelodeon — with WBD’s portfolio of HBO, Max, Warner Bros. film and TV studios, DC, CNN, TBS, TNT, HGTV and Discovery+. Paramount has said it expects $6 billion in cost savings from the merger, which is Wall Street shorthand for mass layoffs on a significant scale.
The ten-minute meeting was presided over by chairman Samuel Di Piazza Jr., with Zaslav, Campbell, Wiedenfels and chief communications officer Robert Gibbs in virtual attendance. Di Piazza was bullish. “We appreciate the support and confidence our stockholders have placed in us to unlock the full value of our world-class entertainment portfolio,” he said. “With Paramount, we look forward to creating an exceptional combined company that will expand consumer choice and benefit the global creative talent community.”
Zaslav echoed the sentiment. “Over the past four years, our teams have transformed Warner Bros. Discovery and returned the company to industry leadership,” he said. “Today’s stockholder approval is another key milestone toward completing this historic transaction that will deliver exceptional value to our stockholders.”
Paramount Skydance struck a similar note. “Shareholder approval marks another important milestone towards completing our acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery,” it said in a statement, adding that it looked forward to “closing the transaction in the coming months.”
The shareholders have spoken on the merger. On the pay, they were ignored before the vote was even counted.
